Verizon

Another consumer cell phone survey and yet another vote of confidence for the office marked, “iPhone Team” in Cupertino. In a new study by ChangeWave, “9 percent of respondents are “very” or “somewhat likely” to buy the iPhone in June while another 7 percent are likely to buy the iPhone as a gift.”

And if the iPhone gets discounted (as rumored) to under $300, an aditional 10% of respondents have said they will jump on the iPhone bandwagon as well.

If all of this true, service providers like Verizon Wireless could get burned as existing customers migrate to Cingular. But on the other end of the losing stick will be manufacturers like Motorola, who in this study, is predicted to lose up to 17% of its marketshare.

[Via Mad 4 Mobile Phones]

The market research firm, IDC announced this week that Verizon Wireless has overtaken the lead for number of wireless subscribers. This top position previously belonged to Cingular WIreless. The announcement lists Verizon Wireless with 56.8 million subscribers and place Cingular with 56.3 million.

But will Verizon Wireless maintain top position for long? There is no word on how many of the reported 1 million interested iPhone buyers are existing Cingular customers or even Verizon Wireless customers? Well, consider this: if half of that million (500k) are non Cingular customers who end up becoming subscribers by buying the iPhone, Cingular would be equal to the number of subscribers that Verizon boasts. And if any of those 500k are Verizon customers, the pendulum swings further towards Cingular dominance.

So why is this important? The leader in wireless subscribers can single handedly change the standards in the industry. That is, of course, if the lead is big enough. Consider the power of a momentum shift in subscribers.

[Via InformationWeek]