Apple may hold on Verizon iPhone until after CES

Apple's rollout for the Verizon iPhone will wait until after CES wraps up, sources said Wednesday night. The launch would arrive until sometime after the event's end on January 9, but when it would take place hadn't been narrowed down. Bloomberg speculated that it might come before Valentine's Day but didn't claim inside knowledge.

Most rumors circulating around the Verizon iPhone have had production starting this month or last as the company built up enough stock to handle a Verizon launch. The past claims had three million produced in December and could be enough to support a first wave of subscribers in at least the US. The same rumor that called for between five million and six million CDMA iPhones shipping in early 2011 also predicted that Apple would bring out the alternate cellular technology in Asia-Pacific, possibly altering its schedule as it accommodates China, Japan or Korea.

Verizon has two keynotes at CES, one by its CEO Ivan Seidenberg and another 4G-oriented keynote, but these are more likely to focus on the Motorola tablet and the HTC Thunderbolt smartphone. Most rumors around the iPhone have limited it to 3G, owing both to the newness of LTE technology and to the lack of coverage so far.

Regardless of timing, a Verizon addition is predicted by UBS Securities analyst John Hodulik to primarily feed off of existing subscribers rather than lead to AT&T defections. Of the 13.3 million iPhones he anticipated going to the carrier in 2011, 10 million would be upgrading from either a basic phone or a rival platform like Android or BlackBerry. Only 2.3 million would be switching from AT&T, and a remaining million would either come from a smaller rival such as Sprint or else would be completely new to cellphones.

A mass conversion would be unlikely to have much of an effect on AT&T; losing six million would cost it only 10 percent of its cellphone sales estimated for the year and just 4.8 percent of its total footprint. Combined with attempts to promote Android and Windows Phone 7, the company may only see a slight drop.

Sprint and T-Mobile have been silent, both officially and otherwise, on iPhone plans. The former's CEO, Dan Hesse, has gone unusually quiet whenever the subject has come up, hinting that he has been in talks with Apple on the subject. Verizon is rumored but as yet unconfirmed to be angling for a semi-exclusive where its smaller competitors are still locked out.

Even without the extra two or more carriers, the iPhone could still significantly curb Android's presence in the US should predictions like those from UBS come true. Verizon has grown extremely dependent on Android for its declining smartphone sales and may need or want the iPhone to get more AT&T-like growth, keep customers from jumping to AT&T for Apple's devices and diversify its lineup.

By Electronista Staff