Survey Looks at Customer Carrier Preferences Once AT&T Loses iPhone Exclusivity

121419 credit suisse carrier switching

Credit Suisse yesterday released the results of a customer survey examining what current customers are likely to do once AT&T loses its exclusivity for the iPhone in the United States. Silicon Alley Insider shares some of the charts from the presentation, which suggests that 23% of AT&T's iPhone customers could defect to Verizon if the phone were to launch on the carrier early next year.

A new survey from Credit Suisse says 63% of iPhone owners will stick with AT&T, even if it loses the exclusive right to sell the phone.

Where would AT&T iPhone owners go if given the chance? 23% will join Verizon, while 3% will go to Sprint, and 2% will go to T-Mobile.

Credit Suisse views AT&T's surveyed retention rate of 63% as a positive, calling fears of the effect of the loss of iPhone exclusivity for AT&T overblown.

121419 credit suisse verizon iphone potential

Following the same rationale as that used by Morgan Stanley earlier this year, Credit Suisse estimates that approximately 8 million current Verizon customers would move to the iPhone should it become available on the carrier. That figure is calculated by using the internal iPhone adoption rate for AT&T of 16%, multiplying it by Verizon's customer base of 82.5 million, and accounting for nearly 5 million former Verizon customers who have already moved to AT&T for the iPhone.

Finally, Credit Suisse's data predicts that AT&T will have 18 million iPhone subscribers by the end of this year, up from nearly 13 million at the end of 2009 and 6.6 million at the end of 2008.

Related Forum: iPhone

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