In a note to clients Monday, one analyst said Apple needs to bust up its exclusive deal with AT&T for the iPhone, but Verizon Wireless doesn’t have to be the way to go.
Verizon has been expected to be the first telco other than AT&T to carry the device since it’s No. 1 in terms of number of subscribers. But analyst Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. says if Apple partners with both Sprint and T-Mobile, it would achieve almost the same effect. Those two carriers have a combined 82 million subs, while Verizon Wireless has 93 million.
Most speculation in recent weeks has supported the idea that Verizon will get the iPhone in January. Regardless of carrier, Wu says something is ready to break. He says “the iPhone could likely finally be at another carrier besides AT&T here in the U.S. in 2011 and potentially at Verizon in 2011 or 2012." The note goes on to say that growing support and demand for Android phones, particularly the Droid, are leaving Apple with little choice but to team up with another carrier. The competition is starting to get stiff.
Wu says negotiations with Verizon are ongoing, but many details are “still being ironed out, including technology and economics." The analyst says it’s too early to say Sprint and T-Mobile won’t get into the action before Verizon does.
In another interesting note, Wu says the Android platform would take a bigger hit than BlackBerry would if Verizon and Apple join forces. He says that’s because the “feature sets are closer and Android phones are being positioned as ‘iPhone alternatives.’"
