BREAKING: Verizon iPhone to work -- outside the US! And customers prefer it over HTC Thunderbolt.
A few details re iPhone the Next from the Verizon earnings call:
The next Verizon iPhone model will work on overseas networks, a Verizon Communications Inc. executive confirmed today in what may have been an accidental lifting of the secrecy that usually surrounds Apple Inc.'s products.
Verizon Communications Inc.'s chief financial officer, Fran Shammo, told analysts on a quarterly earnings conference call that the new phone would be a "global" version, implying that it will be able to roam on the "GSM" wireless networks that are common in other countries.
Rival AT&T Inc.'s version of the iPhone already works on GSM networks. Verizon started selling its own, non-GSM version on Feb. 10.
Apple hasn't revealed any details on the next iPhone. It didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment before business hours Thursday on the West Coast.
Shammo didn't say when the new phone would launch, but he implied that Verizon and AT&T would be on an "equal footing" later this year. That would mean that the two carriers would get the next iPhone model simultaneously. Apple has released previous iPhone models in late June and early July, but analysts are saying it could be a few months later this year.
In a later interview today, Shammo said he didn't want to comment further on Apple's plans.
On Wednesday, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook reinforced the notion that the next iPhone would not be capable of using Verizon's new super-fast "LTE" data network. AT&T is building a similar network and plans to have it up and running in a few areas this summer.
Cook said early LTE chips for phones force design compromises that Apple isn't prepared to make. That could mean that the chips are too big to fit inside the iPhone, or that they consume a lot of battery power.
In related iPhone - Verizon news...while I wouldn't call Verizon's LTE "super fast", even relatively speaking, it is faster. And, unlike (new) iPhone, the HTC Thunderbolt does utilize this '4G' standard. Yet, iPhone continues to outsell this top-of-the-line Verizon Android handset.
Verizon on Thursday announced that it activated 2.2 million iPhone 4 units in the first quarter of 2011, a period in which the handset was on sale for less than two months.
The new numbers arrive alongside data for other, competing handsets available on the Verizon Wireless network. The largest carrier in the U.S. also revealed that it activated more than 260,000 HTC Thunderbolt handsets in two weeks, and more than a half-million 4G devices were activated during the quarter.
The three-month frame to start 2011 is the first time that rival carriers AT&T and Verizon have gone head-to-head in iPhone sales. AT&T, which reported its earnings on Wednesday, revealed that 3.6 million iPhones were activated on its network in the first quarter of 2011, a 33 percent increase from 2010.
However, the AT&T and Verizon numbers are not an apples-to-apples comparison, as the Verizon iPhone did not launch until Feb 10, or more than a month into the quarter. Though Apple does not provide a regional breakdown of iPhone sales, based on activations reported by Verizon and AT&T, the company sold at least 5.8 million handsets in the U.S. last quarter.
For those of you keeping score at home: on Verizon, which has been 'all in' on Android from the moment they realized what iPhone was delivering to AT&T, the score is, per reader SSCUTCHEN:
- 130,000 Thunderbolt's (4G) per week vs 314,000 'old' iPhone 4's per week (2.2 million over the 7 weeks of the quarter iPhone was available)
- 2.2 million iPhones over 7 weeks of Q1 vs "more than 500,000" 4G devices over the entire quarter
I would expect that once Verizon has the new new iPhone, the gap between it and the top-of-the-line (or possibly all) Android devices, will grow even larger.