Looking for clues about iPhone supply? Ask AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile - MarketWatch

All 3 large U.S. carriers sent representatives to a Citi concern league Wednesday, and portion they mostly weren’t asked astir iPhones specifically, they fielded questions astir whether they saw inventory constraints connected “high-end smartphones” during the 4th quarter.

“There was intelligibly immoderate dislocation” that “probably did interaction immoderate volumes,” AT&T Inc. T, +0.37% Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches said astatine the conference, according to a transcript provided by Sentieo/AlphaSense. But arsenic the 4th wore on, the “situation got better,” helium continued.

Peter Osvaldik, the main fiscal serviceman of T-Mobile US Inc. TMUS, +3.23%, besides acknowledged immoderate shortages during the 4th portion noting improvement.

“I don’t expect determination was a batch of spillover [into the archetypal quarter] due to the fact that a batch of that got steadfast by the extremity of the quarter,” helium said astatine the event.

T-Mobile shared its fourth-quarter subscriber numbers successful conjunction with the conference, which 1 expert called “solid.”

Verizon Communications Inc. VZ, +1.39% struck a likewise upbeat code astir however conditions ended up moving out.

“There were days [with] analyzable pb times, but we sorted that out,” Chief Executive Hans Vestberg said. He noted that “there is fundamentally nary spillover close now, astatine slightest for us.”

Investors could proceed to look for hints astir iPhone show successful commentary from the wireless giants — peculiarly AT&T and Verizon, which thin to study quarterly results earlier Apple does.