Verizon activated 3.1 million iPhones in Q3 2012

Verizon announced its quarterly earnings today and confirmed that it sold 3.1 million iPhones in Q3 2012. This is up from the 2.7 million units that the carrier sold in the previous quarter and up from the 2 million the carrier sold in the same quarter last year.

During its earnings conference call, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo also said that 21 percent of the iPhones sold in the quarter were compatible the carrier's 4G LTE network. We can interpret this to mean that Verizon sold 651,000 iPhone 5 handsets in the week between when the iPhone went on sale and the quarter closed.

Despite increasing iPhone sales, Verizon still sold more Android handsets in the quarter. The carrier sold 6.8 million smartphones in Q3 2012, of which 3.4 million were of the Android persuasion.