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Verizon iPhone hurt Sprint sales

Sprint Nextel has just reported their first quarter results, their first full quarter of Verizon iPhone availability. Despite adding more than 1.1 million total wireless net subscribers (prepaid: 846,000, postpaid: 310,000), best ever prepaid churn of 1.81 percent, and the lowest prepaid churn of 4.36 percent in over five years, they could have attracted even more customers if it weren’t for that pesky CDMA iPhone.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told analysts on a conference call that Verizon’s introduction of the iPhone “did have an impact on our performance for the quarter”. He would not put a dollar value to it, though. On the other hand, there are indications that CDMA iPhone sales are not currently brisk. Digitimes reports that Apple may have cut CDMA iPhone 4 orders by half to five million units, down from the ten million CDMA units originally commissioned for the entire 2011. Are potential Verizon iPhone buyers simply waiting for a next-generation iPhone?

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Maybe white iPhone 4, which is finally available at both AT&T and Verizon after a ten-month wait, is exactly what Verizon needs to boost sales?

Brian White, a Ticonderoga analyst, thinks “a certain mystique and scarcity value around the white iPhone” will bring about 1.5 million would-be white iPhone buyers to Apple stores each quarter.

Analysts have promised us flying cars before so we’re taking their estimates with a few pinches of salt. If you ask me, these are probably the same people that would have otherwise bought the black model.

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