Just over 50 percent of U.S. carrier Verizon’s first quarter smartphone sales were iPhones, the company announced early Thursday. The two models of iPhone that run on the Verizon network, the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S, accounted for 3.2 million of Verizon’s 6.3 million smartphone sales during the quarter.
The number of Verizon iPhone sales is down from a high of 4.2 million during the December quarter, one in which the debut of the iPhone 4S and the introduction of the free, on contract, iPhone 3GS helped Apple sell a record 37 million iPhones worldwide.
Today’s report from Verizon foreshadows Apple’s own quarterly report, set for next Tuesday, April 24. Analysts, while divided on the subject, generally predict slightly lower iPhone sales as the demand for the iPhone 4S trails off. However, as MacRumors pointed out, Apple’s launch of the iPhone 4S in China and other countries at the start of the quarter, as well as the addition of China Telecom, China’s third largest mobile carrier, in February, may bolster worldwide sales.