FORTUNE — Last April, when AT&T (T) reported that it had activated 4.3 million iPhones in Q1 — down from 7.6 million in the Christmas quarter — Wall Street looked at Verizon’s (VZ) iPhone activations (3.2 million, down from 4.2 million), assumed the bloom was off the iPhone rose, and knocked another $10 off Apple’s (AAPL) already depressed share price.
Wall Street apparently forgot that 63% of iPhone sales come from overseas, and when Apple reported that it sold 35 million iPhones in the quarter — millions of them in China — a lot of really smart people looked pretty stupid.
They seemed to have learned their lesson. Verizon reported Friday that it activated 2.7 million last quarter and on Tuesday AT&T reported that it activated 3.7 million. Both numbers were down sequentially, but this time the analysts were prepared.
“We view AT&T’s June quarter iPhone number of 3.7 million as better than our prior thinking on the US markets,” wrote Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster in a typical note to clients. “Between Verizon and AT&T, iPhone sales were down 15% sequentially, compared to our thinking of down 24% sequentially.”
So far, Apple’s shares seem to be holding up. Maybe this time traders are willing to wait a few hours for the markets to close and for Apple to report how many iPhones it actually sold.
