- By Brian X. Chen
Plenty of Verizon customers would toss their Nokia, BlackBerry or HTC phones in exchange for an iPhone — if Apple ever delivers the coveted handset to their network.
Seventeen percent of Verizon’s customers would upgrade to an iPhone given the opportunity, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty wrote in a research note, based on responses to the firm’s U.S. consumer iPhone survey.
“There is substantial pent up iPhone demand within the Verizon installed base as 16.8 percent of Verizon subscribers said they are ‘very likely’ to purchase an iPhone if offered on the Verizon Network,” Huberty wrote, adding that this number is higher than the number of AT&T subscribers — 14.6 percent — extremely interested in the current iPhone.
Ever since the iPhone debuted on AT&T in 2007, analysts and journalists have questioned when (not if) Apple will share the iPhone with Verizon. Speculation over the impact of a Verizon iPhone has gained momentum ever since The Wall Street Journal reported a rumor that Apple was producing a CDMA iPhone this fall. CDMA is the standard used by Verizon.
In response to the rumor, AT&T’s CEO Ralph da la Vega said during an investor conference that his company was not fazed by the possibility of a Verizon iPhone. He explained that family plans and corporate plans constitute a large part of AT&T’s customer base, and it’s difficult to migrate multiple devices to a different carrier. Link
