The smartphone wars: Verizon gets iPhone
<p>Finally, after 18 months of busted rumors and false starts, Verizon got the iPhone today.  Apple fanboys, still stinging from comShare&#8217;s November report that Android had passed the iPhone in U.S. market share, are delirious with joy. People who actually get paid to think about smartphone market trends are less sanguine.</p>
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<p>&#8220;We believe that current estimates of [iPhone's] potential sales are overblown,&#8221; <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110111-709019.html">said</a> Daniel Hays, who covers telecommunications for consulting firm PRTM.  This is sensible, in view of the iPhone 4&#8217;s failure to reverse Apple&#8217;s market-share losses earlier this year.</p>
<p>Other analysts have pointed out that, now that AT&#038;T has lost its exclusive, they&#8217;ll certainly be promoting Android phones more. “Now that AT&#038;T has an incentive to promote Android more than it’s done until now, Android there will grow,” <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-11/google-s-android-likely-to-lose-as-verizon-gets-iphone.html">says</a> Tero Kuittinen of MKM Partners LP. “It’s going to compensate for much of the decline at Verizon.”  According to the <cite>Wall Street Journal</cite>, AT&#038;T has already committed to shipping a dozen new Android models this year.  This will offset the increase in iPhone sales through Verizon; given AT&#038;T&#8217;s market position, it is even possible that Kuttinen is underestimating and the net effect on iPhone volume will be zero or negative.</p>
<p>My prediction is that the Verizon iPhone will prove no more effective than the iPhone 4 was at stemming the progressive weakening of Apple&#8217;s market position.  It&#8217;s too late; the window when Apple could irrefutably claim superior &#8220;user experience&#8221; began to close with the release of Android 2.2 and slammed shut during the iPhone 4 antenna fiasco.</p>
<p>The coming wave of cheap system-on-a-chip Android phones will crank up the pressure, as the price difference between iPhone and equally capable Android models opens up to three digits in U.S. dollars.  Bloomberg reported Apple&#8217;s stock slightly down and Google&#8217;s slightly up in advance of the announcement, suggesting that investors have already priced in this expectation.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve already spam-binned one attempted threadjacking about this news.  I will continue to do that.  Comments should be attached to this post and not elsewhere.  Content-free flamage will be deleted.</p>
