AT&T is expecting a “rocky, volatile and hard to predict” 2011 after losing iPhone exclusivity, said CEO Randall Stephenson speaking with analysts on Thursday.
However, the erstwhile sole American provider of Apple’s nifty prestige handset claims to be “fairly confident” that they will still manage to grow through the disruption.
Last quarter, AT&T gained enough subscribers to pass Verizon as the biggest domestic wireless carrier, now boasting 95.5 million wireless customers compared to Verizon’s 94.1 million.
The only problem is now Verizon’s got the iPhone, and analysts are going absolutely bonkers predicting how many people will flee AT&T, and how many CDMA iPhones Verizon will sell. Some analysts say that up to 10% of AT&T’s existing subscribers could jump ship in the coming year, while others suggest that Verizon could sell twenty five million CDMA iPhones.
Meanwhile, Verizon’s further sweetening the pot by offering unlimited data and mobile hotspot features for up to five connect devices, neither of which AT&T has officially countered yet.
“Rocky?” Seems like a bit of an understatement, don’t you think? 2011 is going to be a knuckle-whitener for AT&T.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
