Almost 150,000 Apple iPhones were activated in the first day-and-a-half they were on sale, AT&T, the largest US telecommunications group, said yesterday. The 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 that 146,000 of the touchscreen-based smartphones were sold in the first 36 hours and added that more than 40 per cent of the purchasers were new customers.