US mobile operator AT&T added a net gain of 2.1 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of last year to reach 77 million for full-year 2008, driven by strong sales of the iPhone. The operator said that total iPhone activations over the last half of 2008 reached 4.3 million with 1.9 million iPhone 3G customers added in the final quarter. 40 percent of the most recent quarterly iPhone additions were new customers, the operator said, adding that iPhone customers continue to deliver “high-value subscribers with ARPU approximately 1.6 times higher and churn rates significantly lower than the company’s overall post-paid subscriber base.” Other operational highlights for the quarter included a 51.2 percent rise in mobile data revenues to US$3.1 billion, AT&T’s twelfth consecutive quarter of data revenue growth above 50 percent. Total quarterly mobile  revenues increased 13.2 percent to US$12.9 billion. For full-year 2008, total mobile revenues were US$49.3 billion, up US$6.7 billion or 15.6 percent, over 2007.

AT&T’s total group revenues for the fourth quarter rose 2.4 percent to US$31.1 billion, while net income stood at US$2.4 billion – a decline from US$3.14 billion in the year-earlier period. Full-year revenues totalled US$124.0 billion, with net income of US$12.9 billion. “Despite the economic environment, we grew revenues in 2008, and I expect 2009 will be another year of overall revenue growth and solid progress for our company,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman and chief executive.