Verizon iPhone deal could provide massive sales boost

The largest mobile phone network in the United States, Verizon, is set to boost sales of the iPhone after it reached a deal with Apple to begin selling the iconic smartphone.

The iPhone had previously only been available in the States with the network AT&T, America's second-biggest carrier, which helped Apple reportedly sell more than 11 million of the products in the first nine months of 2010 alone. Figures vary when industry experts estimate how many extra sales the Verizon deal could bring Apple, but analysts believe an additional 9 million to 12 million iPhone sales could be achievable.

It is not clear yet whether Verizon could also have rights to sell the iPad 2 or iPhone 5, both of which are expected to be released by Apple this year. Apple have had an exclusive agreement with AT&T to sell the iPhone since the product was launched in 2007, but Verizon’s bargaining power is considerable given that they are believed to have more than 90 million subscribers across the US.

The Apple deal is of course also great news for Verizon who can expect a further uplift in their huge subscriber database, whilst they could also generate extra revenue from additional data services which they will provide to their new iPhone customers.

The Verizon Apple handsets could be available early in Q1 of 2011 but they require different chips to the AT&T iPhones, so that technical issue has to be resolved first.

Apple already have more than a quarter of the market share on U.S. smartphones so the Verizon agreement will alert competitors to up their game. BlackBerry manufacturers RIM have a similar market share and there are a growing number of users on Google's Android mobile operating systems.