Want to know why a carrier like Sprint is willing to promise Apple almost $16 billion to get the iPhone on their network, or why carriers put up with paying astronomical subsidies just to get a single iPhone customer on their network?

As usual, it all comes down to the crisp, president-branded cabbage. According to a new study, almost 60% of iPhone users spend more than $100 a month on their wireless plan, compared to only 53% of Android users.

Says All Things D:

Almost 60 percent of the iPhone users CIRP polled during October-December 2012 spent more than $100 per month on their wireless plan, with 10 percent spending $200 or more. Just 6 percent spent $50 or less; for Android users in that category, the percentage was double. And only 53 percent of Android users fell into the “over $100 per month” category, with 7 percent landing in the “over $200 per month” category.

It’s a subtle distinction, of course, but it does show fairly conclusively that iPhone users make more money for carriers than Android, Windows or even Blackberry customers.

However, one shouldn’t count out statistical anomalies in this data: almosy all iPhone users are on regular carrier plans, while a lot of Android and even Blackberry customers are on budget plans. That’s going to statistically weight iPhone average plan prices closer to the middle.

Another question here is how much the rise of shared family data plans has fiddled with the math here. How much do you pay per month for your carrier? At my home, we pay around $160 a month, but that’s for both my iPhone and my girlfriend’s iPhone, with 4GB of shared data between us. I’d argue that breaks us down to the under-$100 a month category, but I bet carriers don’t look at it that way.

• SourceAll Things D