Verizon Wireless says it has more iPhone sales online than in its local store branches. The information disputes the apprehension that few people welcomed the in store debut, which pointed out low sales on the Apple Inc device.

The company started selling the phone on its website last February 3. Since then, the demand for the phone has been at top levels, Chief Executive Daniel Mead said during an interview with Reuters held at the company’s headquarters in New Jersey.

The phone hit the company’s store shelves on February 10, seven days after it launched on their website. Mead said the absence of longer lines outside Verizon Wireless stores on that day could be due to the fact that around 60 percent of their sales were made through its website.

Also, executive said the iPhone has helped greatly increase the pace at which customers changed to Verizon Wireless from its other rivals in United States. At peak times, the device brought its website up to 100 times more orders than the usual.

Mead reiterated the company’s notion that it would sell as many as 11 million iPhones this year. He informed that the company will report their sales figures specific to the iPhone when it releases earnings on the first-quarter.

The launch of Apple iPhones at Verizon ended the three-year exclusive rights deal with AT&T Inc to sell the device in United States. As a result of the added data traffic from its iPhone users, AT&T was overwhelmed with complaints about its performance. However, Verizon said its performance is doing well even with the additional data traffic received from the phone.

Verizon Wireless announced on Tuesday that they will be selling their version of the iPhone 4 starting February 10 of this year. This gives iPhone buyers in the United States a different choice of carrier for the first time after three and a half years.

The iPhone has been sold exclusively by the wireless carrier AT&T Inc since it was released to the U.S market in 2007.  Many people were frustrated by this lack of network choice.

The launch event held on Tuesday finally ended the monopoly on Apple Inc’s iPhone. Many people are already excited to get this phone in their hands through the Verizon network.

Tim Cook can not even tell the number of times he has been asked by his colleagues about when the iPhone will work for the Verizon Wirelss, the Apple chief operating officer said on the Tuesday’s event.

For existing Verizon customers, the pre-orders for iPhone will start on February 3. The given price will be $200 or $300 along with a two-year contract. That is about the same price and concurrence as the iPhone through AT&T.

With wider domestic network coverage than AT&T, Verizon is thought to offer better features particularly for the older “3G” wireless broadband. The carrier covers several areas within the country that AT&T does not.

In addition, iPhone service by AT&T in big cities can be spotty most likely because of crowding in the network.

However, it is still unclear as to how many people will shift from AT&T to Verizon. Verizon did not mention anything about their iPhone’s service plan along with pricing on Tuesday.

AT&T has sold about 11.1 million iPhones in a period of nine months in 2010. Analysts are expecting Verizon to sell about 5 to 13 million iPhones this year.

Apple Inc. is reaching out to Verizon Wireless to assist in selling the iPad this Christmas, thus weakening their sturdy tie-up between AT&T Inc. The gadget will be available in both companies this Thursday, October 28.

The surprising news created a disturbance between the relationship of AT&T Inc. and Apple.  AT&T Inc. was the exclusive carrier of iPhone, and was primarily tapped as the network that will give the iPad’s mobile plan when this computer tablet was released last spring.

Apple’s iPad are priced equally by both companies. On the other hand, Verizon will be offering the gadget with a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot bundle that will work for their network.

Walter Piecyk, a BTIG analyst said that the decision of Apple to sell the iPad through Verizon is a simple one. He said that Apple wants to sell more products of these as possible and this decision will truly sell more items. Piecyk said that if Verizon’s network works better, then why not Apple sells the iPad tablets there.

He said that Verizon’s retail sales will help them be accustomed with the tablet’s software, as well as to prepare them from selling iPhone items. These two gadgets share the same operating system.

Verizon is pushing a high-speed connection by bundling the gadget to its portable hotspot. Prices start from $629 for the 16 Gigabyte iPad reaching to $829 for the 64 Gigabyte model.

Verizon Wireless has about 2,000 stores compared to AT&T’s 2,200. Their shares closed up to 0.7 percent while AT&T shares increased to 0.1 percent. Evidently, Apple climbed to 0.7 percent shares.