Verizon believes iPhone is to raise its profits

Click to zoom. Posted by dennis on March 31st, 2007 at 07:46pm Comments

America’s second largest mobile carrier Verizon, the same Verizon that apparently turned down an opportunity to have the iPhone as an exclusive on its network before it became an AT&T/Cingular exclusive, seems to believe that passing on the iPhone exclusive will help its sales more than hurt them.

“We have been struggling in the music business in that to create attention for music on a phone has been something that’s been difficult to do. We feel okay with our music position today. The entry of the iPhone will draw more attention to music on cell phones,” said Dennis Strigl, Verizon Communications’ president and COO.

Mr Strigl remains skeptical about the iPhone’s core market. “If you’re looking at a phone at a $400 or $500 price point, we know from our experience with PDAs, that it’s a very small market. It’s a niche market. I think what you’ll see from us is not so much emphasis on music on a phone but on all the things you can do on your Verizon wireless phone,” Mr Strigl said at a Bank of America conference.

Mr Strigl doesn’t expect Verizon to lower their music downloads prices to those of $0,99 at iTunes, or at the same price with Sprint, which recently announced a new music pricing system. “At 99 cents [a track] there isn’t a lot of money to be made,” he said. Canadian Rogers Wireless recently announced a flatrate $20/month unlimited music downloads service, and a similar service, Omnifone, is starting to appear in Europe.

iTunes sold over 2 billion music tracks by now, whereas Verizon only sold 12 million music tracks.

Thanks: CNBC.

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Filed Under: News+ iPhone's Competition

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comments

Sam Damon

These comments from the COO of a company which doesn't support Mac OS X very well on landline DSL service. I had to call tech support to set up my DSL account, as no Mac browser then available would work with the Verizon account setup page. Admittedly, this was several years ago, but still...

... these comments from the Verizon COO seem self-serving, as if he's trying to get out from the "WTF -- you passed on iPhone!" questions from Wall Street.

Strigl just doesn't get it. My $0.02.

Bert Smith

I was and am a Verizon customer. I have 4 phones, 2 with them and 2 with cingular. The phone I use is Cingular. Cingular was a breath of fresh air compaired to Verizon. Their games with Bluetooth or should I say their stupidity with bluetooth, Their arrogance, All the cell phone companies suck. Currently Cingular doesn't suck as much. Were they smart enough to land the iPhone? Probably not. They did and I think they will be in for an interesting ride. The other phone companies are scrambling to get 'similar' phones on the market, but when you are stupid, how can you duplicate the concept of 'similar' They think similar is to play music and browse the internet. They miss the point and I think that the iPhone will shift things in their industry.

Brian

Verizon are a bunch of idiots. Do the still cripple the functions of there phones for bluetooth? They are so behind in technology it's sad. Verizon will eventually fall when Wi Max takes over!!!

Oh Blah Dee Blah Dah

I am moving TO Cingular FROM Verizon. I have had 3 cell phones with Verizon for the last 4 years. Verizon is okay, but its the Mac OPERATING SYSTEM that counts, its no longer the Network anymore, its the Mac OS and all of the seamless software that works with it!

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