Among the facts and figures of Wednesday's quarterly earnings report, Apple CEO Tim Cook dropped the news that the LTE-enabled iPhone 5 would be heading to 36 new carriers next week.
AppleInsider is reporting that Apple will debut the 4G LTE-equipped iPhone 5 with 36 new carriers around the world next week, a significant expansion into countries where the super-fast data speeds are not currently available.
"Today we have 24 carriers around the world that provide LTE support for iPhone 5. Those are in countries like the US, Korea, the UK, Germany, Canada, Japan, Australia and a few others," Cook said. "Next week, we're adding 36 more carriers for LTE support. These carriers will be in countries that we are not currently supporting LTE."
Among the countries noted are Italy, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, the Philippines and "several Middle Eastern countries," which collectively serve more than 300 potential incremental subscribers.
AppleInsider notes that such expansion is just over 10 percent larger than Verizon Wireless, currently the world's largest LTE carrier with 257 million subscribers.
"We feel really good about the situation we are in, particularly with these adds next week," Cook concluded.
The rapid expansion is particularly impressive considering that it was less than a year ago that Apple added LTE to its product mix with the third-generation iPad, followed by the iPhone 5 last September.
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