AT&T said today that it activated 4.3 million iPhones during the first quarter, with 5.5 million smartphones sold overall.
About 21 percent of iPhone activations were for customers new to AT&T, the company said during a earnings call with analysts this morning. Last week, rival Verizon said it sold 3.2 million iPhones during the quarter.
AT&T's numbers are a bit of a drop from last quarter, when it sold 7.6 million iPhones, but that coincided with the release of the Apple iPhone 4S.
Overall, AT&T sold 5.5 million smartphones during the quarter, 78 percent of which were for post-paid customers. At this point, 59.3 percent, or 41.2 million, post-paid AT&T customers have smartphones, up from 46.2 percent last year.
AT&T didn't break out Android sales, except to say they were "strong." Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility, also made a point to mention Windows Phone and the new Lumia 900, which debuted on AT&T earlier this month.
About 30 percent of AT&T post-paid smartphone customers are using devices that run on AT&T's expanding 4G LTE network. At this point, the network covers 35 markets and de la Vega said AT&T is on track to double its LTE coverage this year and "largely complete" its rollout by the end of 2013.
During the quarter, AT&T added 187,000 post-paid customers and 125,000 prepaid ones - also a significant drop from the last quarter, when it added 717,000 post-paid customers thanks in large part to the iPhone 4S.
De la Vega stressed that data usage continues to grow, which will necessitate the need for more spectrum. When asked if AT&T would snap up some of the spectrum Verizon is trying to sell, however, de la Vegas said it's not "appropriate for us to speculate what would happen with the Verizon spectrum."
For more, see PCMag's full review of the iPhone 4S and the slideshow below.