While the exact details of AT&T and Apple’s revenue sharing agreement have not yet been officially released, one expert believes that by using the power of math, he has found out just how much Apple is receiving for each iPhone. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster took the sales number of 1.4 million iPhones sold, and subtracted the 250,000 iPhones reported not being activated. This gives us a total of 1.15 million iPhones left. He then took the sales figures of the fourth quarter for final related sales, which had managed to reach the $118 million mark. After removing the revenue from hardware profits, it was determined that AT&T is paying Apple $18 per iPhone per month of service!

Just after two years, this agreement would easily pay for the iPhone itself. THIS is why Apple doesn’t want people hacking the iPhone and altering it for other services. Considering that 15% of people have already hacked their iPhone, Apple has lost over $86 million for the next two years of lost service!

Once you consider these kind of losses for Apple, it isn’t hard to understand why it doesn’t want people hacking the iPhone. But it makes you wonder if it tried making agreements with other companies… what are your thoughts? If Apple were to allow the user to pick their service provider, would profits be better or worse?

[Source: Silicon Alley Insider]

[tags]AT&T, Apple, iPhone[/tags]