AT&T exec: 4 out of 10 of our iPhone sales to enterprises
AT&T's Ron Spears, CEO of the telecom company's Business Solutions unit, said Apple's iPhone has plenty of traction in the enterprise and in some cases is replacing a laptop purchase. — Spears' comments, made at the Barclays …
Context & Ripple Effects
Ron Spears' figure is the payoff to a three-year arc: Gartner told enterprises to expect an enterprise-grade iPhone back in September 2007, and by April 2009 the AT&T chief was publicly fighting to keep the device exclusive. What was then a consumer bet is now, by AT&T Business Solutions' own account, four in ten of its iPhone sales.
The timing matters because the claim lands alongside other signs of phone-for-PC substitution: a survey out this week found nearly a third of would-be netbook buyers instead waited for and purchased an iPad, and CEO Randall Stephenson had already tied AT&T's narrative to both iPhone and iPad demand when he spoke in March 2010.
First-order effects
- AT&T Business Solutions gains a quantified proof point for its enterprise pitch — 40% of its iPhone sales going to corporate buyers lets it sell the iPhone as a business line item, not a consumer spillover.
- Enterprises weighing a smartphone against a laptop refresh get carrier-level validation for the substitution, since Spears says that in some cases the iPhone is replacing the laptop purchase outright.
Second-order effects
- RIM, whose BlackBerry franchise rests on being the default corporate handset, now faces a carrier telling investors the upstart owns a large share of its own enterprise mix — forcing a defense of the corporate mobility account.
- Netbook and low-end PC vendors lose the same deal AT&T just claimed: if phones and tablets absorb budget laptop purchases, PC makers' cheapest segment is where cannibalization bites first.
Third-order effects
- If laptop-replacement holds as a pattern rather than an anecdote, enterprise mobility shifts from a perk line-item to core IT procurement, with carriers and device makers — not PC vendors — setting the corporate endpoint agenda.
- Carrier economics tilt toward per-device service attach on high-value smartphones, making exclusivity deals and enterprise channel access the contested ground between AT&T, Apple, and rivals like Verizon — where persistent rumors of an unconfirmed Verizon iPhone keep competitive pressure on AT&T's position.
The trend: Smartphones are moving from executive perk to laptop substitute in corporate purchasing, turning enterprise share of flagship-phone sales into a headline metric for carriers and device makers alike.