Almost 150,000 Apple iPhones were activated in their first day-and-a-half on sale, AT&T, the largest US telecommunications group, said on Tuesday. The iPhone sales figures are the first official numbers since the iPhone was launched amid a marketing blitz on June 29.

AT&T, which negotiated an exclusive deal with Apple to launch the iPhone, said over 40 per cent of the purchasers of the first 146,000 devices were new customers.