iPhone 4G on Verizon and AT&T Release Date, Expected Summer 2010?

Wall Street Journal has reported that Apple is currently developing two new iPhone models, one of which will be compatible with Verizon’s CDMA network, which is scheduled to be released this year. The two iPhone models is said to be produced by different manufacturers.

GSM compatible iPhones will be manufactured by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which produced Apple’s previous iPhones while CDMA capable iPhone models, to be used by Verizon Wireless, will be manufactured by Pegatron Technology Corp., the contract manufacturing subsidiary of Taiwan’s ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

The new iPhone GSM version would be released this summer while the CDMA model (probably iPhone 4G) for Verizon would not go into production until September 2010. The CDMA model of iPhone is said to be thinner with a faster processor.

For AT&T and Apple the relationship has been crucial. For several years, AT&T’s growth has come almost single-handedly from the iPhone capturing most of the smart-phone market share. According to comScore Inc., AT&T has over 43% of all U.S. smart-phone customers, compared with 23% for Verizon. Most of the people in US switched their carrier just because of iPhone. In the fourth quarter of 2009 itself, the AT&T activated about 3.1 million new iPhones.

There has been much speculation that the exclusivity deal between iPhone and AT&T will come to an end in 2010. In past six months Verizon was in talks with Apple to gain access to the iPhone and the iPad, though no official news resulted. Verizon has always shown its interest in the iPhone, but Apple did not develop a CDMA compatible version of iPhone for Verizon to keep its development process simple.

It is important to note that Verizon has over 91 million customers base in US and making the iPhone available through Verizon CDMA network could open up a significant new market for Apple helping Apple to nearly double the number of iPhone users in the U.S.