Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) notes that Apple’s retail business accounts for a relatively small share of US iPhone unit sales.
When it introduced the iPhone almost 20 years ago, it was only available on AT&T with its GSM platform, which was more common globally. Verizon and (at the time) Sprint, with their CDMA networks, were excluded. Ultimately, Apple introduced a CDMA iPhone, and then carrier technologies converged to a single platform.
All along, Apple needed the carriers to serve as stable, reliable partners to grow the iPhone market.
In some ways, Apple relies on the carriers more heavily than it cares to admit. Here we look at how carriers sell by far the greatest number of iPhones in the US, and what it means for Apple.
In a new study, CIRP compared sales at Apple’s own retail operation (physical stores and online at Apple.com) to other channels: all mobile carriers (the big ones, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, and smaller national and regional ones), mass merchants (Best Buy, Walmart, etc.) and other sources. As with Apple, figures for the carriers, mass merchants, and other retailers include both physical store and online sales.
From the report: Apple’s retail business accounts for a relatively small share of US iPhone unit sales, 16% in the year ending June 2025. Carriers account for just over three-quarters of total sales, with mass merchants and other sources making up the rest.
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