AT&T releases 3Q earnings

AT&T posted strong 3Q08 numbers, powered in large part by the iPhone 3G.  The carrier sold 2.4M units, and nearly 40% of those were new adds.  That means, according to recent reports, Big Blue took nearly half a million customers from Verizon on iPhone sales alone, a number the nation's number two carrier can't be too happy about.

Other numbers were impressive as well, including a record 1.7M postpaid adds and 2M total adds.  Churn held steady at at 1.7 overall and the 1.2 postpaid rate was slightly lower than 3Q07.  Data revenue grew 50% to $2.7B, we're sure the increased charges for those 2.4M iPhones played a large part in that- and overall revenue was up 15.4% to $12.6B.  The important ARPU metric increased 2.6% to $58.99.  All in all, the company pulled in $5.6B for the quarter and now sits with 75M subscribers.

source: AT&T