Providers in the rest of the world have been rapidly losing iPhone exclusivity in the last few years and months. AT&T shouldn’t be surprised and certainly shouldn’t be pissed. It’s honestly surprising that they had the iPhone exclusively for such a long time.
It seems obvious to me that it’s not in Apple’s best interest to let AT&T keep the iPhone all for itself, not at this point in time.
Does anyone know why AT&T had the iPhone exclusively in the first place? Did Apple actually want that to happen or was it merely a concession to get AT&T to accept Apple’s demands?
Exclusivity was won through what amounted to reverse auctions on the terms of a revenue sharing agreement. Those terms were never disclosed, but Apple confirmed the revenue sharing did exist.
Piper Jaffray estimated that AT&T was paying $18/mo per iPhone subscriber to Apple in addition to $600 per handset in '07. Presumably the persistent verizon iphone rumors in the past have been a stick used by Apple while they were negotiating extensions of that exclusivity+revenue share to extract more money.
It seems obvious to me that it’s not in Apple’s best interest to let AT&T keep the iPhone all for itself, not at this point in time.
Does anyone know why AT&T had the iPhone exclusively in the first place? Did Apple actually want that to happen or was it merely a concession to get AT&T to accept Apple’s demands?