In its recently-released second quarter report, AT&T revealed that it had witnessed a 26 percent increase in its earnings for the quarter, largely because of an investment gain, lower costs, and fewer defections.

While the company reported that its subscriber base had grown during the quarter and its revenue had increased marginally, the carrier also disclosed that the rate of growth in new contract subscribers had slowed, even in spite of the release of the Apple iPhone 4.

Going by the statistics released by the carrier, its $4.02 billion, or 68 cents per share, profit during the second quarter was up from $3.2 billion, or 54 cents, profit during the same quarter last year. The profit figures this time round included a 7-cent investment gain from a stock deal involving Telmex Internacional S. A. B. de C. V. The carrier also reported a 0.6 percent increase in revenue rose to $30.81 billion.

Noting that the 496,000 postpaid subscribers that the carrier added during second quarter marked a slightly more than one-third increase from the numbers a year back, AT&T's Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner said in an interview that the third quarter would hopefully witness a notable bounce back in the number of postpaid subscribers, with new customers going in for the iPhone 4.

Lindner said: "Our expectation this year is that net adds will be less than it has been in the last couple of years. That doesn't mean there isn't significant opportunity for growth."