You Guessed Wrong – Verizon Stock Falls After iPad Announcement


With last week’s iPad announcement came a pretty big shocker: the iPad comes with 3G, and you’ll get it from AT&T. Everyone was betting on 3G for the tablet, but they also were placing money on Verizon being the main candidate. As a result, when things went the way of the AT&T Death Star, Verizon’s stock dropped 2.2 percent according to an article in Delaware Online.

It seemed like a given, too. After all, AT&T hasn’t exactly been good to Apple and the iPhone. We still don’t have tethering, 3G coverage is spotty at best in most areas, and don’t even bring up New York or San Francisco – you might as well own a tin can and some string out there. Better yet, Apple’s contract with AT&T is over the iPhone, NOT the iPad, so there’s an easy out. why not take it?

My guess – and this is all conjecture – is that Verizon was being too much of a pain in the ass. They wanted the iPhone, the iPad and anything else with a cell chip in it produced by Apple for the next decade, plus 75% of the cut. I really do think that Verizon feels that since they’ve got the best network and the best coverage that Apple should crawl on hands and knees to kiss their butts. On the contrary, AT&T is raking in the dough thanks to Apple, so why would Apple need to kiss up? Frankly, I’m willing to bet there’s a line at Steve Jobs’ door that starts with reps from Sprint, T-Mobile and even Nextel. I think Verizon may need to eat some humble pie before Apple caves in to them.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

4 Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Absolutely. If they had bothered to do some background research they would have realised that Steve caves in to no-one. Not joe public, not so called analysts, not competitors and certainly not companies freely taking the piss. They could have the last bandwidth available on the planet and Steve would find a way around them…. until of course, the next round of negociations. How I would love to be a fly on the wall at one of those face-offs.

  2. I disagree. We simply don’t know what is going on behind the scenes with Verizon. Why?

    There is no reason to announce such a relationship right now. Apple only announced the iPad because they wanted to get developers working while production ramped up (and leaks were likely during production ramp). There is no reason to announce anything that does not need developer support.

    They will get much better mileage(press) out of a separate announcement of a Verizon product offering. Why dilute the message now? No one has anything to buy or sign up for. In fact you cannot even sign up with AT&T yet (so no one locked in by “mistake”).

    In addition they may have unique solutions to the CDMA challenge, but that is another post.

    I believe Apple has no reason to announce any deal with Verizon until much closer to launch of such a product/service. They might already have a signed contract with Verizon, they may still be negotiating, or the deal might be dead. We don’t know.

  3. It’s pretty simple – Verizon went with CDMA and turned Apple down … if CDMA was a more popular choice worldwide, that would make it easier to make up ground. As it is – there are hardly any other countries literally using CDMA – maybe 5 out of 140 countries? So, why bother making a phone just for VErizon? (essentially, well technically Sprint uses CDMA also). Now add in that Verizon turned Apple down – another non starter … so maybe when LTE is up & running in 2 more years? Plus, no really knows how Verizon’s network would handle the iphone, all tests show its 3G is slower than AT&T’s and while t’s nice it’s “might” be available in 3G in Bumblehead, North Dakota – if it runs slower in SF WITHOUT the iphone, imagine what might happen with a device with 20 million users … how many of their smartphones are at iphone usage – NONE – NOT EVEN close. Moto hasn’t announced sales figures for the Droid after THREE MONTHS – what does that tell you – they are weeks-months away from even hitting a million?

  4. Awwww GREAT!

    Means we have to keep watching those annoying Verizon commercials with the 3G map thing.

    Look Verizon, I have an old iPhone 2G and no 3G AT ALL and still get all the internet stuff. Not blazing fast but I get it fast enough and everywhere I go! EDGE baby, EDGE!