Oh snap, girl — It’s on.
Back in January of 2009, Verizon acquired Alltel, along with Alltel’s customer base of around 13 million subscribers. When they threw that lot in with Verizon’s already massive customer base, it earned Verizon the crown as the biggest carrier in the US (a title previously owned by AT&T as a result of their merger with Cingular)
A year later, however, AT&T has managed to snag the crown back.
In an earnings call this morning, AT&T announced that their subscriber count now came in at a grand total of 95.5 million. Compare that with Verizon’s earnings call from earlier this week, when Big Red announced a cumulative headcount of 94.1 million.
The current quarter, however, will be the one to watch. Why? It’s all about the Verizon iPhone, which launches next month. Between AT&T ship-jumpers and those who have been waiting through years and years of VZW iPhone rumors before finally stuffing their crummy old phones in a sock drawer, Verizon will almost certainly be swimmin’ around in a monsoon of new subscribers by the time this quarter closes.
What do you think: will the launch of the VZW iPhone be enough to turn the tide back in Verizon’s favor?