The iPhone 4 officially launched on the Verizon network last Thursday, however in-store crowds were much smaller than expected.

According to The Dallas Morning News, AT&T passed along a note from Hudson Square Research analyst Daniel Ernst who surveyed 131 iPhone buyers in line at stores early in the day.

Ernst wrote that the longest line he saw had 35 people.

Ernst’s unofficial survey included stores in Arizona, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

He found that 70 percent of in store buyers were current Verizon customers, and only 11 percent were AT&T customers making the switch.

“It is commonly agreed that Verizon’s network has a greater coverage area as well as less dropped calls,” SMU senior Michael Todd said. “I came to the same conclusion by comparing my iPhone user experience with that of friends signed to AT&T.”

There are a variety of possible reasons why the in-store crowds were slim.

A poll on the Dallas Morning News website found that just 14.29 percent of poll participants planned on buying the iPhone on launch day despite the cold weather. Another 5.16 percent were planning to buy the iPhone, but did not feel the need to buy it on launch day.

Many others have decided to hold out for the upcoming iPhone 5.

Online sales, however, were a different story. In just two hours the online pre-sale sold more phones than any other first day launch in the company’s history.

Verizon made pre-orders for existing customers available Feb. 3.

Pre-orders for the Verizon iPhone 4 sold out within a day, according to Mashable.com.

Thursday’s launch officially ended Dallas-based AT&T’s monopoly on Apple’s iPhone.