Despite the wild continued popularity of the Apple brand, activations among iPhones are down for AT&T and Verizon for the smartphone model. For the first quarter of 2012, Verizon reported just 3.2 million activations, while AT&T reported 4.3 million activations, coming in well short of expectations for the iPhone brand. The drop is about 43% for AT&T and 24% for Verizon, according to CNN.com.

This may be due, in part, to the fact that rivals of Apple are starting to make quite a bit of noise, particularly from the very strong Android brand. In fact, for both Verizon and AT&T, sales of non-Apple smartphones is on the rise. Moreover, Apple may be suffering from holiday syndrome, in which non-holiday sales simply aren’t as significant, as people have become accustomed to purchasing Apple products during major release sales or the holiday season. They simply don’t come out in droves to pay full prices for these models. This may also be because of the steep cost of the iPhone model, giving consumers even more of a reason to sell this brand and move on to try something else. It remains to be seen as to whether or not Apple can continue to grow or whether it has plateaued at this point.