AT&T Screwed Without iPhone Exclusivity? Don’t Bet on It
AT&T shareholders who are worried about the company’s loss of iPhone exclusivity have little to fear. The Verizon iPhone that’s rumored to be headed to market in the first quarter of 2011 probably won’t hurt AT&T’s business all that much.
In fact, according to a survey by Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Chaplin, only 23 percent of AT&T iPhone users say they’d like to jump ship to Verizon (VZ). Another 3 percent said they’d switch to Sprint (S) and 2 percent to T-Mobile (T). But only 3 percent of all those groups said they’d break their contract with AT&T to do it.
Meanwhile, 63 percent said they’d stick with AT&T.
Given that, Chaplin figures AT&T will lose about 1.4 million subscribers to Verizon if its iPhone exclusivity deal should end. Which is nowhere near what some other more-catastrophic estimates have put it at. By year end, the carrier is expected to have about 18 million iPhone users, and while the loss of nearly a million and a half of them predicted by Chaplin will be painful, it’s certainly not an apocalypse.
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[Image credit: Credit Suisse]
