Analyst: Verizon to cannibalize 6.5M iPhone sales from AT&T

Custom ZAGG Skins for iPhone 4!“Analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray said in a note to investors on Monday that he believes the launch of a Verizon iPhone will increase total 2011 U.S. handset sales for Apple by 2.5 million, a number he cautioned ‘may be conservative,'” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.

“In all, Munster sees AT&T selling 11 million iPhones, and 9 million from Verizon,” Hughes reports. “Munster sees Verizon activating 25 million total smartphones in calendar year 2011.”

Hughes reports, “Munster’s model places Apple with a much lower share of smartphone sales that the iPhone currently enjoys at AT&T. In the September 2010 quarter, Munster estimates that the record 5.2 million iPhones activated by AT&T accounted for about 80 percent of all smartphones sold by the carrier.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Munster is underestimating the impact Apple’s iPhone will have on Verizon’s sales of pretend iPhones.

22 Comments

  1. No simultaneous voice and data, no deal with me! If they make texting free and have unlimited data plan, it will be hard to resist tho! If the provide enough incentive to break AT&T contract, the floodgates will open!

  2. If you are stuck with or like Verizon, Ok. But, who would take an Android or some other iKiller over an iPhone? Will it save you $50 or so over a 2 year multi hundred dollar contract. So? Which would any paying customer want? Think … think?

  3. Well, last night I dropped my data plan on my iphone from unlimited to 200MB on the AT&T plan in anticipation of moving away from AT&T to Verizon. I will use my iPad plan which is unlimited if I have to.

    AT&T needs to learn a lesson for their bad network, and crap service.

    Long live market forces…

  4. Another key facts that no one in the media has mentioned is that CDMA iPhone will open the market for Apple to other countries. I recall that India has a huge CDMA network and they have been gagging for iPhone. Go Apple..

  5. iPhone on Verizon won’t hurt AT&T as much as some people think. What it WILL hurt is all the Android fragment-a-phone sales that Verizon carries. That’s where a lot of iPhone buyers will come from; people who bought a crap Droid phone only because they couldn’t get an iPhone or Verizon people who have been limping along with some other phone while holding out hope that they’d get access to an iPhone on Verizon someday.

  6. The CDMA network in India offered by Tata and Reliance and in China by China Telecom dwarfs the number of subscribers on Verizon by 2:1. In India alone there are 100 million mobile subscribers and in China 75 million mobile subscribers. These are accounted for by their CDMA networks only.

  7. @anypants-

    It doesn’t work that way anymore. The cancellation fee is a pro-rated portion of the entire fee divided by the number of months left in your contract. So a 300 termination fee with 6 months left on a 2 year contract would be only $75. (at least in my home state it is- not sure if a national law)

  8. @AppleInsider

    Although some might consider Verizon and AT&T to be of the same low species, “cannibalize” really isn’t the right term. “Grab” or “take” or even “predate” maybe.

  9. A Verizon iPhone will get some people switching, but not all are going to jump ship the first week of February. More likely is current Verizon customers storming the gates to drop their Android/Blackberry and pick up an iPhone.

    The impact of ATT’s 2 year contracts will prevent many people from switching right away. But really this isn’t going to affect ATT much. Analysts seem to think that Apple can only sell X number of iPhones based on past sales.

    Once again, analysts amazingly will keep their jobs while wildly missing the increase in iPhones sold once Verizon gets it. ATT will not drop, in fact will continue to increase iPhone sales (albeit not as quickly), and Verizon will double Apple’s previous iPhone sales.

  10. Even if Apple “cannibalizes” AT&T iPhone sales, they are new iPhone sales nonetheless. In fact, people that might be happy keeping their old iPhone would have to buy a new one if they want to switch to Verizon. Either way, Apple wins!

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