Partnership with Apple Helps to Boost AT&T’s Growth in Wireless Revenue

(NewsVisual, powered by IntellectSpace) -- The partnership between AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) and Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) appears to be paying off for both companies. 

On Tuesday, AT&T reported a 26.7 percent increase in earnings per share for the first-quarter 2008, with a significant portion of that revenue growth coming from its wireless services division.

“Total wireless revenues increased 18.3 percent versus the year-earlier first quarter to $11.8 billion,” the company said in its statement.

More specifically, AT&T’s statement attributed that increase to “average monthly revenues per subscriber.”

And a significant factor for that particular area of growth had everything to do with AT&T’s partnership with Apple.

Here’s how The New York Times analyzed the relationship:

"The company, which is the exclusive carrier for Apple’s iPhone, added a net of 1.3 million wireless customers, giving it a total wireless customer base of 71.4 million subscribers. That is an increased pace of growth compared with a year ago. The average monthly revenue a subscriber, a closely watched measure, increased 2 percent, to $50.18," The Times reported in an online article on Tuesday.

Given the fact that this partnership helps both of these companies to generate revenue, it will be important for them to make certain that it remains stable.

Therefore, it’s important that the two companies keep some open channels of communication, such as ones between the companies’ Directors in order to help keep their business relationship functioning at an optimal level.

NewsVisual created an IntellectSpace Knowledge Map that illustrates the personal connections between the members of the Board of Directors for Apple and AT&T.

The Knowledge Map shows two different sets of connections:

Apple Director Eric E Schmidt is linked to AT&T Director Laura D Tyson via the University of California, and Apple Director Jerome B York and AT&T Director James P Kelly are connected via their board service to Dana Corp.

These personal connections can help to keep the business relationship between these two companies on track to produce future earnings.

Click here to see an interactive version of that IntellectSpace Knowledge Map.

(Note: the information contained and presented in Knowledge Maps is public information from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States of America).