Analyst: AT&T Would Lose 40% iPhone Customers To Verizon [AT&T Would See Mass Defection Of Customers If iPhone Was On Big Red]

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A CDMA iPhone on Verizon has been rumored since the iPhone first came all those years ago (and it never dies). A new report from a mobile industry analyst says that AT&T would lost a whopping 40% of their iPhone customers to Verizon, should that company ever get the iPhone on their networks. It’s been reported that AT&T and Apple have an exclusivity deal signed for a few more years, probably to AT&T’s benefit.

AT&T has made a number of concessions to Apple, one of them being the very cheap, month-to-month data plans that they offer for the iPad in the ‘States. It’s not impossible to conceive that AT&T is willing to bend to Apple’s demands.

Anyway, back to the story, analyst Drake Johnstone of Davenport & Company reports that:

Over the past several years, AT&T indicated that 40 percent of its new iPhone customers came from other carriers. We estimate that AT&T has 15 million iPhone customers (as of Q-1 10) and believe that AT&T could lose as many as 6 million, or 40 percent, of its iPhone customers when Verizon begins selling the iPhone in 2011.

Johnstone reports that in 2011, the number of new customers to AT&T will drop from 8 million to 2 million if a Verizon iPhone indeed comes out. The iPhone is the best-selling phone on AT&T, and AT&T’s CEO has called it “an important part of our line-up”.

Despite any possibility of an exclusivity deal, Mr. Johnstone suspects that 2011 will see a CDMA iPhone on Verizon’s networks. AllThingsD, who broke the story, reports that many iPhone customers are on business or family plans, which would be difficult/impossible to move to Verizon.

Any AT&T iPhone users who would switch to Verizon if given the chance?