AT&T has not experienced a high number of subscriber defections to Verizon in the wake of that carrier releasing its own iPhone, AT&T said today at a Morgan Stanley technology conference in San Francisco.
"We haven't seen any surprises, and everything is pretty much within our expectations," said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.
De la Vega wouldn't specify any exact numbers, or whether he thinks AT&T will experience a larger decline of subscribers now or in the future, when current subscribers reach the end of their contracts.
"It's a little bit early to tell," De la Vega said. "The situation is volatile; it changes from one week to the next."
AT&T lost its iPhone exclusivity in February, when Verizon announced that it would become the second carrier to offer to offer the iPhone 4. Analysts at Wells Fargo most recently predicted that AT&T will experience first quarter losses of 150,000 contract subscribers, a number which is actually down from their initial projection of 225,000.
De la Vega shifted the focus to AT&T's strengths, pointing out that AT&T will be the only carrier to offer both HSPA+ and LTE. No new numbers were announced, but he reiterated that LTE rollout is expected to reach 75 million people by the end of the year, and be fully complete by the end of 2013.
De la Vega emphasized that even if users fall out of the LTE range, they will not experience a significant degradation in network quality by falling back on HSPA+.
He also said that he is happy with where AT&T is today, and pointed to its pricing strategy, saying, "Our tiered-pricing structure is very simple and very adaptive to customers."
During an appearance at the same conference yesterday, Verizon said it would drop its current unlimited data plan and switch to tiered pricing this summer.