“Piper Jaffray just issued a report laying out the reasons why Apple is likely to sign up multiple carriers for the iPhone in the US, whenever its exclusive distribution arrangement with AT&T lapses (probably in mid-2010). Among the obvious facts—such as that the company has moved away from exclusives in every country where it has had them—are some interesting nuggets. For example, Apple’s share of the smart phone market in France has ballooned to 40%, from 15%, in just six months since carriers SFR and Bouygues began selling the iPhone along with formerly-exclusive partner Orange,” Peter Burrows reports for BusinessWeek.
“Also, the firm did a cost-benefit analysis on whether Apple should not only end exclusivity in the US, but also spend the money to develop and support a version of the iPhone that runs on the CDMA network technology used by market giant Verizon (which doesn’t support the current iPhone, which works on GSM technology),” Burrows reports. “While Apple would lose around $50 in subsidy per phone (just 10% of the total subsidy—so not a huge haircut) and incur around $25 in extra development costs per phone, these would be a small price relative to the increase in overall sales, Piper argues.”
Full article here.
