Citi: Verizon iPhone Delayed Due to ‘Key Component’ Problems

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The iPhone 3GS. Creative Commons-licensed photo by Fr3d: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fr3d/2660915827/
The iPhone 3GS. Creative Commons-licensed photo by Fr3d: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fr3d/2660915827/

Another analyst has piled onto the growing sentiment that Verizon will not offer a CDMA iPhone by the middle of 2010 – or not until 2011. Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner said Wednesday a 2-month manufacturing delay in a “key component” will push the CDMA handset’s launch back to the fourth quarter of 2010 or the first quarter of 2011.

The hitch is due to “a manufacturing delay of several months in a key component,” Gardner told investors Wednesday.


The delay apparently is at Taiwan Semiconductor and centers on the phone’s Qualcomm chipset, Gardner explained to Barron’s.

Gardner becomes just the latest analyst to shoot holes in a Monday Wall Street Journal article suggesting Apple would produce a CDMA-based iPhone ready for volume shipping in September. Earlier today, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said Verizon might balk at paying up to three times its usual price for a smartphone. A more likely scenario could be Apple turns to T-Mobile or Sprint to expand its iPhone distribution in the United States, the analyst argues.

On Tuesday, several analysts said a deal with Verizon was ‘unlikely,’ pointing to China or Japan as potentially the first countries to sell the CDMA-based iPhone.

Despite seeming to throw water on the Verizon connection, Gardner was steadfast in the belief between 6 million and 7 million CDMA iPhones would be produced in 2010.

[via Barron’s ]

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