Verizon Wireless to Offer CDMA iPhone in January 2011 – Report

We have already seen Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes  and Bank of America, Merrill Lynch analyst Scott Craig  claiming that USA might be bestowed with CDMA version of iPhone 4 on Verizon no later than the first quarter of 2011 and added that Verizon could sell 9 million iPhones next year retailing for $320. Now Bloomberg is reporting that Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile-phone company, will start selling Apple iPhone next year in January, ending AT&T exclusive hold on the smartphone in the US.

It is being reported that Verizon Wireless, which is building a high-speed fourth- generation network (LTE), will unveil a number of handsets that will run on the new technology in January at the Consumer Electronics Show and most likely CDMA version of iPhone 4 will be one of those handsets.

After the news broke, Verizon Communications rose 28 cents to $28.99 in NYSE composite trading at 3:08 p.m. AT&T declined 54 cents to $24.41. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, dropped $9.45 to $258.85 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Earlier we reported that Pegatron Technology has received CDMA iPhone orders from Apple and they will be shipping CDMA iPhone 4 in the fourth quarter. But the news contradicted with the statement given by John Johnson, a Verizon Wireless spokesperson who confirmed that there is no plan for Verizon to support the Apple mobile devices like iPhone 4 and iPad in the U.S. in a video interview with Beet.TV that took place at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital conference.

Verizon has over 93 million customers in US and making the iPhone 4 available through Verizon CDMAnetwork could open up a significant new market for Apple helping Apple to nearly double the number of iPhone users in the U.S.

Statistically, Verizon is the largest US wireless carrier, with 93 million subscribers and on the other hand T-Mobile has just 34 million. If Apple signs a deal with the Verizon then the iPhone 4 sales would increase exponentially (nearly doubled) and if iPhone 4 lands-up with T-Mobile, the iPhone 4 sales would increase by a little more than a third.

Apple now wants to imitate Google strategy of rolling out its major smartphone across all major carriers and we think that Steve Jobs will soon announce the next iPhone 4 availability across major US carriers (Verizon/Sprint/AT&T/T-Mobile).

Well, rolling out iPhone 4 across major US carriers might play a pivotal role in increasing iPhone 4 sales significantly. What do you think? Any thoughts?

Via – bloomberg