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May 17, 2009

Late Friday, AT&T announced a new smartphone ad campaign that will highlight the carrier’s relatively high number of iPhone subscribers.

AT&T cited independent market research firm comScore that reveals that twice as many smartphone users have chosen AT&T over any other U.S. wireless carrier.

The new ads will begin running today and will continue through June 30.

AT&T said a new TV spot features a businessman e-mailing with his boss and sending files on a bus that’s morphed into a harried workplace. The idea communicated is that twice as many smartphone users have chosen AT&T simply because with AT&T, they have confidence they can always stay connected.

comScore said that in March, AT&T had 11.8 million smartphone customers, which was more than double the 5.1 million that the combined Verizon Wireless-Alltel unit had and about 47 percent of U.S. smartphone customers overall, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

AT&T stressed that its ad campaign not only highlights the carrier’s smartphone users but the network’s ability to cope with large bandwidth-consuming wireless devices.

AT&T said it expects total capital expenditures to be between $17 billion to $18 billion this year, with more than 78 percent of that supporting mobility and data services for business.

Until recently, AT&T had claimed to be the U.S.’ largest wireless carrier. But Verizon Wireless recently acquired Alltel and subsequently an additional 13.2 million customers.

In its first-quarter earnings, Verizon reported 86.6 million total subscribers, while AT&T had 78.2 million.

“We’ve taken integrated devices mainstream and about 31 percent of our postpaid customers use one,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.

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Source: AT&T.