Wow, nice work by Piper Jaffray analyst Christopher Larsen today, pulling together two of the hottest Apple (AAPL) story memes into one tidy commentary.
In short, Larsen contends that the hoo-hah over antenna issues with the iPhone 4 could delay the arrival of the phone on Verizon Wireless (VZ, VOD), an event that has been much anticipated by Apple investors and customers alike.
“Verizon has historically been known for having a very rigorous qualification process to get phones on its network,” he notes. “Over time, Verizon has also been known for having phones later than other carriers � often due to demanding tests being completed by Verizon network engineers. While we can never know for
sure, it is possible that this strict testing has helped Verizon maintain its strong network image (if all of Verizon�s phones are better tuned and engineered to not drop calls, then the network would appear better).”
Larsen writes that until recently, he would have thought that Verizon would take any iPhone it could sell in order to win market share. But now, with the second generation Droid phones gaining traction – and fans – and Apple trying to tamp down the antenna issue, he says, Verizon is likely to take a more deliberate approach to introducing the iPhone.
“The question is: would Verizon still sell an iPhone unconditionally, or would it look to qualify the
device through an exhaustive process as it would any other � a process that could delay the launch of the device by several weeks, if not months?” he writes. “We think Verizon would opt for the latter if asked today.”
VZ today is up 8 cents, at $26.77.
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