Does Verizon Have A Case Of AT&T Envy?

We're having a "Does ___ have a case of ___ envy?" theme today at Homotron, or at least that's what I'm telling Jesse James. Verizon's answer was far less upfront than Microsoft's, and seemed to veer toward (a qualified) "No."

The question arose during Verizon's quarterly conference call, which covered financial figures from this spring. Verizon admitted to only slightly lowered sales since the iPhone 3G's July 11th launch, describing a "minimally short-term impact" that was "disproportionately less" than a quick glance at Verizon and AT&T's market shares might suggest.

For what it's worth, I don't think they're fooling themselves overmuch - the iPhone has certainly spawned a number of imitators and many consumers who patronize carriers other than AT&T do want a piece of the smart phone pie without having to switch to AT&T. In fact, smart phone sales account for 30% of mobile phone sales these days; the iPhone might be the biggest and best fish in the pond, but there will be plenty of scraps to feed on for some time.

Also, new big fish will be released into that pond when Android and Windows Mobile 7 phones get a chance to compete. So as far as sales go, I mostly buy Verizon's argument.

What I'd give my eye teeth to see are numbers reflecting how many of Verizion's customers defected for the iPhone 3G. I'm about to ditch T-Mobile for the same reason, and that's just got to hurt a bottom line somewhere.

Verizon: iPhone 3G has impact, but 'minimal' [Electronista]