AT&T’s exclusivity agreement with Apple over the iPhone is ending at the end of this year meaning that the Cupertino-based company is free to send the iPhone to another carrier in the US, most likely Verizon. According to some sources familiar with the matter, Verizon and Apple are going to announce a CDMA iPhone in January 2010, probably at the Consumer Electronics Show which opens its doors as of January 6th.
I guess there is no point in reminding you that Apple and Verizon officials didn’t comment on the situation so we’re simply going to fuel the rumor mill. Apparently, Verizon is going to order three million iPhones in the first quarter, and then a further three million in each quarter meaning that the Big Red is expecting to sell 12 million iPhones per year.
The article published in Bloomberg yesterday doesn’t specify whether Verizon will subsidize the iPhone 4 or if Apple will build a new iPhone just for the Big Red. It is known that Verizon is working on a LTE 4G network which should be ready in select markets sometime in 2011.
