According to BusinessWeek, Apple may announce a CDMA version of the iPhone 4 that works on the Verizon network as early as Valentine’s Day.

Apple’s introduction of an iPhone for use on Verizon’s network will come sometime after the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January, according to a person familiar with Apple’s plans who is not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Although this should technically hurt AT&T and many users out there are eager to switch to Verizon, BusinessWeek feels differently. Their main reasoning behind it is that many customers are either locked into a contract or won’t want to go through the hassle of switching carriers. This may be true to a certain extent but in the long run, AT&T still seems to lose out.

Still, even if AT&T loses more than twice as many customers as Hodulik projects, the carrier will not suffer a fatal blow. If 6 million of its customers defect, the $6 billion in lost annual revenue would amount to about 10 percent of AT&T’s wireless sales in 2011, according to UBS projections. The $6 billion would be 4.8 percent of its total projected sales of $126 billion in 2011.

Earlier this month, AT&T began to move up iPhone 4 eligibility dates for some customers in what was seen as an effort to lock down as many contracts as possible before Verizon gets the device. What do you think will happen if AT&T loses it’s iPhone exclusivity and the CDMA iPhone does end up coming out? Let us know in the comments below!

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[Source: BusinessWeek]

Authors: _GadgetNews

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