When iFixit tore down the Verizon iPhone 4 back in February, they found a Qualcomm Gobi that’s dual-mode GSM/CDMA capable, which indicates to us that the next iPhone on the CDMA spectrum would go global. During yesterday’s conference call, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo indicated that the next iPhone to be released on the network would be a global phone, allowing the next iPhone to become a world-phone as GSM capabilities are enabled. From Barron’s,
Verizon CFO Fran Shammo, asked about the sluggishness of the company’s ARPU growth in Q1, when the iPhone was introduced — growth was just 2.2%, compared to 2.5% in Q4, remarked:
The fluctuation, I believe, will come when a new device from Apple is launched, whenever that may be, and that we will be, on the first time, on equal footing with our competitors on a new phone hitting the market, which will also be a global device.
While Verizon could be poised to obtain an iPhone that was world-phone enabled, it might be a good time to rehash the universal SIM. Previously, Bloomberg reported that Apple is working on the ability to toggle between CDMA and GSM networks with a single SIM that would allow customers to willfully switch between CDMA and quad-band GSM. The iPhone 5 is also rumored to have a bigger display, NFC capabilities, but otherwise is expected to utilize a similar design to the iPhone 4 as a product refresh amongst other reports of an aluminum design with an internal antenna.
