Investor jitters over statements by AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson about the home phone business are "overdone" and neglect the likely growth triggered by the iPhone, says a new research note from financial institution Cowen and Company. The group contends that a 10 percent drop in AT&T's stock value triggered by warnings about sagging landline subscriptions are exaggerated and that the company's cellular service is more than compensating for the drop. The carrier will outgrow its rivals by as much as 15 percent over the next year, Cowen predicts.

A large portion of this expansion will be tied to the iPhone, says the firm. Expected sales of the iPhone during the last calendar quarter of 2007 are reported to be very high for the firm and may help boost the number of new subscribers to AT&T's cellphone service from 2.36 to 2.4 million in the same period. This trend will reportedly continue on into 2008 and should be crucial to driving an overall surge in AT&T's performance over the next 12 months. General growth in AT&T's cellular business is also expected on top of the device-specific results.

The analysis mirrors similarly aggressive claims which have said that Apple may have sold as many as 5 million iPhones over the holidays and would contribute substantially to AT&T's growth as well as its own.