You may be thinking that the Verizon iPhone 4 would make AT&t very, very nervous but the nation’s second-largest carrier is saying that it will be fine without exclusivity of Apple’s smartphone.
“We are ready for it,” AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “The short- and long-term viability of AT&T will be good whether we have exclusivity or not. We are much bigger than this.”
AT&T has seen a large benefit from being the exclusive provider of the iPhone for the last three and a half years, as it now has roughly 18.4 million iPhone users. This influx of customers has added greatly to its bottom line and it’s now in sniffing distance of Verizon in terms of subscriber count.
But if you ask many Apple smartphone owners in major cities, they will tell you that they love the device but loathe AT&T service. We found the carrier to be useless at CES 2011 because of all the iPhone users in town.
This has done untold damage to the reputation of AT&T but it hasn’t yet hurt its bottom line. Now that there is a credible alternative, it will have to step up its service game. The Verizon iPhone 4 may actually help AT&T because it could ease the load on its 3G network in certain markets.
The nation’s second-largest carrier isn’t expecting an exodus of users for Big Red because many of its iPhone users are locked into family plans, business plans or will have to pay a high fee to escape.
The carrier also had a very impressive showing at CES 2011, as it said it will have 20 4G devices by the end of the year and it will carry the Motorola Atrix 4G, which is already a contender for best phone of the year.
What do you think friends? Is this carrier screwed or is there life beyond the iPhone?
[Via Wall Street Journal, photo]
