iPhone 4S

63% of iPhones were activated outside the U.S. last quarter

And that percentage is likely to increase sharply now that China has the iPhone 4S

The chart at right from Horace Dediu's Asymco blog shows the U.S. share of iPhone activations growing last quarter due, he speculates, to the U.S. launch of the iPhone 4S and the addition of a third domestic carrier, Sprint (S).

But the long-term trend is clear. The U.S. is becoming a progressively less important market for sales of Apple's MORE

IDC: The iPhone is once again the world's No. 1 smartphone

Regained the spot that it took from Nokia in June and gave up to Samsung in September

It will come as no surprise to Apple (AAPL) watchers that the company sold 37 million iPhones last quarter. Tim Cook reported that number two weeks ago.

Getting comparable figures from Apple's competitors is a different matter, and that's where companies like IDC come in. Samsung, for example, used to report only the number of mobile MORE

Charlie Wolf: The launch of the iPhone 4S sent Apple Store sales 'into the stratosphere'

In terms of revenue per sq. ft., think Tiffany's (its nearest rival) multiplied nearly threefold

Apple Stores are always busy places, but they tend to go crazy when a major new product is launched. With the arrival of the iPhone 4S, writes Needham's Charlie Wolf in his tenth annual report on the state of Apple's (AAPL) retail empire, they went absolutely nuts.

The numbers for the quarter that ended Dec. 31:

Revenue per MORE

IDC: iPhone is No. 3 worldwide

Apple's mobile phone shipments nearly doubled in 2011, overtaking LG and ZTE

On the strength of sales of the iPhone 4S last quarter, Apple (AAPL) jumped two spots in IDC's ranking of the world's five largest manufacturers of mobile phones -- smart or otherwise.

In a press release issued Wednesday, IDC reported that weakness in the demand for so-called feature phones dragged down market growth in the Christmas quarter -- usually the MORE

Siri makes a cameo appearance on The Big Bang Theory

"I can't believe I bought my soul mate at Glendale Galleria."

Another triumph of product placement for Apple (AAPL). Catch it on YouTube before Time Warner (TWX) takes it down.

Overwhelmed by crushing demand, Apple halts Friday's iPhone 4S launch in China

Retail fail: SWAT teams move in after fights break out among rival gangs of scalpers

There may be no graceful way to launch an iPhone in a country of 1.3 billion that has caught what one analyst calls "Apple fever."

In a frightening parody of the snaking queues that greet the launch of new Apple (AAPL) products in the U.S., thousands of would-be customers massed outside the company's stores in Beijing and MORE

Thousands of Chinese queue up in the cold for the iPhone 4S

Massive crowds gather at Apple's five stores in the world's largest mobile phone market

UPDATED with amazing photos from Beijing by Feng Li via the Mercury News.

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Penn Olson's Steven Millward reports from Shanghai that crowds several city blocks long have formed outside Apple's (AAPL) stores in Beijing and Shanghai hours before the scheduled release of the iPhone 4S Friday morning.

Although China Unicom (CHU) will begin selling the device for MORE

How many iPhones did Apple sell last quarter?

Pros and amateurs both expect a blow-out. They're just haggling over the percentage

The most important metric  for Apple (AAPL) in the quarter that ended eight days ago -- likely to account for more than half of the company's revenue for fiscal Q1 2012 -- is the number of iPhones it sold from Sep. 25 to Dec. 31.

We've polled nearly 40 Apple analysts -- professionals and independents -- and for once they MORE

Don't blame the iPhone 4S if your network is congested

Who are the 1% who are sucking up half the world's cellular bandwidth?

It's tempting to blame -- as many headline writers have -- Apple's (AAPL) newest iPhone and its voice-activated personal assistant for the fact that 3% of mobile users now consume 70% of the world's bandwidth, up from 40% in 2009.

After all, the iPhone 4S with Siri consumes nearly twice as much data as the iPhone 4 and nearly MORE

Apple 2.0's ten most-read stories of 2011

A stock-market anomaly, a new iPhone, a second iPad, two new wireless carriers, a swarm of lawsuits and a malware false alarm

Out of the 793 items about Apple (AAPL) filed in this space over the past 12 months, these were the 10 that -- for good or ill -- interested the most readers:

Snapshot of an Apple flash crash: What triggered the sell-off that knocked $10 billion off the company's market cap? (Feb. MORE