AT&T: Less Than 900,000 iPhones Activated In Q4 (T, AAPL)

During AT&T's Q4 earnings call this morning, CFO Rick Lindner said the company had activated "just under" 2 million of Apple's iPhones by the end of 2007. During the company's Q3 call last October, they said they had activated 1.1 million iPhones. That means that AT&T only activated about 900,000 of the 2.3 million iPhones Apple sold during Q4.

That's less significant than it sounds. Last fall, the gap between iPhone sales and AT&T activations meant that people were purchasing iPhones but purposely not signing on to AT&T -- unlocking their phones to work either on T-Mobile in the U.S. or an international carrier.

But there are other factors in play now. Apple now sells iPhones through its European carrier partners, which accounts for some of the gap. And it also sells iPhones directly to AT&T, which then distributes them through its stores. But on Tuesday Apple said there is still a "significant" percentage of iPhones are still being purchased to be unlocked to work on non-AT&T networks, and wouldn't offer an estimate.

Follow-up: Half A Million "Missing" iPhones? Found!

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