AT&T CFO: Up to 75% of iPhone buyers will be new customers

Up to 75 percent of iPhone purchasers will be first-time AT&T wireless subscribers, AT&T Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner said this week. “The majority of those customers, two-thirds to three-fourths, will be coming from outside of our current wireless customer base and that’s a good thing,” Lindner said during a speech at a Merrill Lynch conference. The iPhone is likely to draw more customers to AT&T stores “at the launch and throughout the rest of the year,” Lindner said. “Creating more traffic in the stores means more sales.” AT&T (formerly Cingular) will be the exclusive U.S. carrier of Apple’s iPhone when it launches in June.