Sprint CEO: Android Phones Are The Data Hogs, Not iPhones

If Apple needed another argument in favor of the iPhone, Sprint's CEO Wednesday offered up a whopper: iOS devices are 50 percent more efficient than Android handsets when it comes to slurping up 3G data. The comment seems to confirm previous reports that devices running Google's mobile operating system are the data hogs, not iPhones.

In a conference call, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said iPhones will likely use half the 3G data than typical Sprint 3G/4G devices. Sprint recently became the third U.S. wireless carrier to offer the Apple smartphone, joining AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Although BTIG Research analysts said they had heard anecdotal reports which echoed Hess, the numbers "never sized to this magnitude." However, if the claim holds up, the factoid "could become a new key differentiator in Apple's relationship with the operators that subsidize versus its competitors HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc.," the analyst firm announced.

Despite the iPhone's purported heavy use of data being used to justify throttling by carriers, in 2010 a study found non-Apple and non-Blackberry smartphones on Verizon used more data than the iPhone.