Market Analysis: Equipment Revenues Q4 2025
Not everyone joined the Apple simp-along...
Key Findings: US carriers generated $63.5bn in equipment revenue in FY2025 at a combined loss of $9.7bn | Q4 revenue up 11.6% YoY across T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon | Assurant Devices Serviced 22.7m, down 5.8% YoY; average trade-in age at all-time high of 3.88 years | UK like-for-like market declined 9.3% in Q4; BT Consumer and VMO2 down a combined 8.7% | Telefónica España the standout European performer at +18.6% for the full year | Vodafone Germany the weakest major market at -16.8% | A1 Telekom grew 9.0% with eastern markets doing the heavier lifting; Telia declined 9.2% led by Sweden | Record US upgrade cycle may not have translated into secondary market volume; fewer devices at higher per-unit values.
Back in October, Counterpoint reported first-ten-day (whatever natural cycle that represents) sell-through in the US and China running 14% ahead of the iPhone 16, with the base model in China described as selling at almost double the equivalent iPhone 16 pace1. Record units, Record ASPs.
By December 2025, the analyst consensus on the iPhone17 had shifted up a notch from exhilaration to euphoria. IDC called Apple’s performance “phenomenal”, pointing to surging demand in China, the US and Western Europe. They forecast a record 247million iPhone shipments and attributed almost the entirety of the global smartphone growth recovery, back up to their 1.5% prediction, based on “outstanding demand for the iPhone 17 series”2. Good job given their latest prediction of a 12.9% decline in 20263.
So now the micro-plastics and tooling swarf have settled somewhat, this quarterly tracker aims to get into the carrier equipment revenue data, initially across North America and Europe, to highlight what actually sold and what that selling might, or might not have set in motion. The data is drawn or derived directly from operator financial filings rather than shipment trackers which, I hope, tells a more granular story.
Q4 2025 In Brief
Whilst Western Europe got a mention in the predictions, the strong iPhone 17 cycle concentrated in the US and China rather than playing out as the global event the forecasters implied. Apple's record shipment numbers appear, in significant part, to be supported by US carrier subsidy intensity as the three major carriers widened their equipment losses in FY2025, paying more per unit to generate the upgrade activity that produced the headlines. But, as CIRP reported at the beginning of February4, a sharp increase in average selling prices was a material factor with the US weighted average retail price hitting $1,077 in Q4 2025, the highest on record, up from $953 a year earlier.
Analysts attributed the sales strength to pent-up demand from an estimated 315m users worldwide who had not upgraded for four or more years5. That cohort is now moving, although the carrier equipment revenue data tells a more geographically uneven story than the headline figures imply. Even within the US, the record equipment revenues sit alongside some less obvious data points that complicate the picture.
Beyond the headline US numbers, the carrier data covers North America including Canada, the UK, the major European operator groups and a selection of smaller European carriers whose results illuminate one of the more distinctive patterns in this edition: the divergence between mature Western European markets and those at an earlier stage of the device replacement cycle. The regional sections that follow cover the major operators that disclose equipment revenues in sufficient detail to draw meaningful conclusions.
Whilst not all carriers file their equipment revenues, or at least not obviously, the following regional sections cover the major companies that do…
Continue reading for:
How T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon collectively lost $9.7bn selling devices in FY2025, and why they did it anyway
The Canadian carriers as a control group: what a rational competitive structure actually looks like
Why the UK missed the iPhone 17 cycle and the structural reasons it is likely to miss the next one too
The 31 percentage point gap within a single European carrier that tells the two-speed story more clearly than any macro data