Welcome to Verizon iPhone!

It’s official. At 11:11 am on 1/11/11 (nice touch Apple), Apple announced that it would begin selling a CDMA version of the iPhone for the Verizon Wireless network. What will this mean for the surging Android sales?

Right now Android and iPhone are neck and neck in terms of total market share, with Android enjoying a slight edge. Making the iPhone available on the nation’s largest carrier will certainly boost its sales, but my prediction is that it will simply solidify the two horse race that exists between Android and iPhone for a number of reasons:

• The major victim from Android’s growth has been RIM, and will continue to be as the iPhone does not offer a business alternative like Google does with Google Apps Device Policy management.
• Android also has multiple devices with the operating system, offering both high end and low end solutions as opposed to the single iPhone offering.
• The Verizon iPhone will be CDMA, not the new 4G LTE network that Verizon is implementing.  It is unknown if the new version of the iPhone (due out in June 2011) will support LTE or not.

My prediction is that this announcement will slow the Android growth in the market somewhat, but not stop it by any means. And Android will still be the number one mobile operating system by the end of 2011.