Better than 1 in 8 in US Have Smartphones

In aggregate around one in eight in the US have a smart phone. When only new handsets are looked over three times as many porportionally selected a smart phone?
AT&T Touts More Smartphone Users

By Andrew Berg
WirelessWeek - May 15, 2009

AT&T today announced a new ad campaign that will highlight the carrier’s relatively high number of smartphone subscribers. In a press release on the company’s Web site, AT&T cited "independent market research" that shows twice as many smartphone users have chosen AT&T over any other U.S. carrier. AT&T said a new TV spot features a businessman e-mailing with his boss and sending files on a bus that’s morphed into a harried workplace.

The idea communicated is that twice as many smartphone users have chosen AT&T because with AT&T, they have confidence they can always stay connected. The new ads will begin running over the weekend. Until recently, AT&T had claimed to be the nation’s largest wireless carrier. However, Verizon Wireless recently acquired Alltel, and subsequently an additional 13.2 million customers. In its first-quarter earnings, Verizon reported 86.6 million total subscribers, while AT&T had 78.2 million.

comScore was the research firm responsible for showing that AT&T in March had 11.8 million smartphone customers, which was more than double the 5.1 million that the combined Verizon Wireless-Alltel unit had and 47 percent of U.S. smartphone customers overall, according to a Wall Street Journal report. “We’ve taken integrated devices mainstream and nearly a third of our postpaid customers use one,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, in a press release.

AT&T said it expects total capital expenditures to be $17 billion to $18 billion in 2009, with more than three-quarters of that supporting mobility and data.