A day after AT&T announced its “best-ever” quarter for smartphone sales, rival operator Verizon Wireless is doing exactly the same thing. The carrier has announced that it expects to have reached a record 9.8 million sales during the fourth quarter of 2012, and it’s attributing that success to the popularity of the iPhone.

85% of the devices Verizon sold during the three-month period were smartphones, according to Verizon Communication chief Lowell McAdam, with a “higher mix of Apple smartphones.” The iPhone 5’s 4G capabilities have helped the company attract new 4G customers, with 23% of its subscriber base now using a 4G device.

Verizon is expected to announce even better iPhone sales than it saw during the third quarter of 2012, when 3.1 million Apple smartphones were sold. 21% of those were the iPhone 5, but Apple’s latest handset will almost certainly account for a larger share of iPhone sales during the fourth quarter.

AT&T announced on Tuesday that it also saw its “best-ever” smartphone sales during the fourth quarter, with 10 million devices sold. It was the “best quarterly sales of Android and Apple smartphones” AT&T has seen.

Verizon will announce its fourth quarter earnings on January 22.

• ViaThe Next Web
• ImageCNN