Study: Verizon commands one-third of U.S. iPhone 4 market share

A little less than five months after Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) began selling Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 4, the carrier has claimed 32 percent of the U.S. iPhone 4 market, according to a report from mobile application analytics firm Localytics.

Click here for details from Localytics.

While the report noted that AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) still commands 68 percent of the iPhone 4 market, Verizon's share has been steadily growing since the February launch of the Verizon iPhone, despite Verizon launching the phone eight months after AT&T did. Moreover, according to Localytics, the growth has been accelerating, with Verizon capturing 7 percent of the market in May and June alone. Verizon's share started at around 20 percent in February and grew to 25 percent in April and around 26 percent in May.   

The data is based on app usage observed by Localytics.

In the first quarter, AT&T activated 3.6 million iPhones, though it's unclear how many of those were iPhone 4s. Verizon activated 2.2 million iPhone 4s in the first quarter.

Localytics hypothesized that Verizon's iPhone market share grew in anticipation of the carrier's decision to switch to usage-based smartphone data pricing for new smartphone customers, a change that went into effect Thursday.

Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo said in May that Verizon will offer the next model of the iPhone at the same time as AT&T, and that the Verizon version of the next iPhone will work in the same number of countries as AT&T's version--comments that likely indicate the next version of Apple's iPhone will support both CDMA and GSM networks.

For more:
- see this Localytics blog post
- see this GigaOM post

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