October 31, 2009
Written by Gadget Gurus
The only way the “Verizon iPhone in 2010″ rumor will go away is if by December 31, 2010 we still haven’t seen a Verizon iPhone. Otherwise, the rumor will stick around and offer continuous debate until we are completely sick of it. Until that happens, we’ll still report the latest developments in that rumor. This latest go-round in the series of rumors is from Brian Marshall, an analyst for Broadpoint AmTech. In a research note, he predicts iPhone exclusivity will drop in the US and Verizon will pick it up, though at a different subsidy than AT&T currently uses.
Marshall predicts in contrast to the typical $400-450 subsidy AT&T provides to entice customers, Verizon would likely offer a $300 subsidy. In essence, Verizon’s iPhone would cost more to a new customer than one with AT&T. While Marshall is positive this deal will happen, not every analyst shares his enthusiasm. Many argue that the recent Droid launch and future partnerships with Google will cause a rift between Verizon and Apple, thus keeping them from selling the iPhone anytime soon.
(more…)
Certain smartphones have become so popular in the US that the large amount of demand was too much for the data network supporting it, thus causing slower internet downloads and dropped calls. Verizon has made it perfectly clear that it is fully prepared for whatever strain its new Motorola Droid will inflict upon its network.
Considering the general public’s concern on the drain the iPhone’s demand has been on AT&T’s 3G network, Verizon Director of data services for the Illinois-Wisconsin region Arvin Singh is attempting to put those concerns to rest. He says Verizon expects heavy demand of the Motorola Droid, and it has long architected its EV-DO Revision A network to handle these kinds of capacities.
(more…)
The mobile phone market showed slight signs of recovery in Q3 2009, as 290.5 million cell phones were sold during the quarter – a 5.6% increase when compared to Q2 2009. All five major handset vendors sold more phones in Q3 than in Q2, save for Motorola, which slipped to fifth place, previously occupied by Sony Ericsson.
Samsung and LG, the two South Korean giants, both broke new records. Samsung shipped more than 60 million phones in a quarter for the first time, so it now controls more than 20% of the market, as expected. LG shipped only 31.6 million units, but it is its highest number to date.
(more…)
Remember Nokia’s plans to launch Qualcomm-based Symbian S60 smartphones in North America? It turns out that one of these smartphones will be released through AT&T. Unfortunately, VentureBeat (the source of this rumor) doesn’t provide a launch date for the handset. However, since Nokia and Qualcomm said back in February that their first phones will be introduced in 2010, we should probably not expect AT&T to announce the rumored device this year.
There aren’t any clear details about this AT&T-bound handset, but Nokia and Qualcomm (which recently joined the Symbian Foundation) may want to use a Snapdragon processor for it. Nokia released quite a few phones via AT&T this year, although none of them is high-end – the latest is the Nokia 6350, a cheap clamshell that’s offered for $30 on contract.