Apple's $400 iPhone kickback from AT&T

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 24 July 2007 11:48

Your IT - Mobility

Apple could be receiving as much as $US400 per iPhone from AT&T under the companies' revenue sharing agreement. According to The Street, AT&T pays Apple a bounty of $US150-$US200 on each iPhone, plus another $US9 per month during the customer contract.

It seems a fair guess that the higher figure applies to sales made by Apple as it more clearly represents a customer brought to the carrier.

The Street suggests these numbers have not been included in analysts' projections of Apple's financial performance. Multiply $US200 by a million or two, and you've got a number that's big enough to show up in Apple's quarterly results, quite apart from the sales revenue from the phones themselves.

It also gives an idea of the kind of deal Apple is likely to be seeking in Europe and later in the Asia Pacific region, and illustrates why carriers will keep Apple under pressure to continually defend the handset from hackers that are trying to find a way of unlocking the iPhone from the partner networks.