No wonder AT&T (NYSE: T) wants to keep the iPhone all to itself. The US’s largest telecoms company, and second biggest carrier, reported first quarter profit that beat expectations, bolstered in part by higher spending on wireless data by its customers, and new net adds lured by the iPhone, which AT&T carries exclusively. The carrier said it activated 1.6 million iPhones in the first quarter, of which more than 40 percent, or 640,000, were new to the network. That means of the 1.2 million net adds to the carrier, a majority of them, or 53 percent came for the iPhone.

AT&T posted a 9.7 percent decline in net profit of $3.1 billion, or 53 cents a share, compared with $3.5 billion or 57 cents a share in the period a year earlier. Overall revenues also declined slightly dropping to $30.6 billion, down from $30.7 billion sequentially. Wireless revenue, which now accounts for 42 percent of total revenue, however, climbed 9.8 percent to $11.6 billion, while wireless data revenue grew 38.6 percent to $3.2 billion, driven by messaging, Internet access, e-mail, and access to applications and other services.

AT&T also reported a 16.4 percent growth in wireline IP data revenues, driven in part by growth of its U-verse services.  It added 284,000 U-verse TV subscribers, nearly double the figure compared to the same period a year ago, to reach a total of 1.3 million in service. AT&T reported that its U-verse TV broadband attach rate was greater than 90 percent in the first quarter, and helped drive up broadband subscriptions. Wired broadband connections increased by 359,000 in the first quarter versus 236,000 in the preceding quarter.

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