Talk of a Verizon iPhone has gone on almost as long as the iPhone has been on the market, and continues to grow with frustration with AT&T, the exclusive carrier of the phone. The great mystery has always been when, because no one was certain of the length of the contract between Apple and AT&T.
The popular guess has been that Verizon would get the phone in early 2011, but an Oppenheimer analyst predicts Verizon will get the iPhone late in the year, and that’s with some challenges to overcome. Enterprise Mobile Today highlights what those challenges might be.
An Oppenheimer & Company analyst is disputing published reports that Verizon will land the iPhone as early as January 2011. Instead he predicts Verizon won’t have a deal in place and start selling the iPhone until the second half of next year.
Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan issued a research note this week following a meeting with AT&T CFO Rick Lindner. Coming out of that meeting, he said he concluded that AT&T (NYSE: T) will likely hold on to its position as the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone until at least the second half of 2011.