As its ad campaign suggests, millions of Verizon customers are waiting patiently for the carrier to release its version of the iPhone, and the carrier could activate up to 25 million iPhones in the next three months, according to a Monday report.
Of the 1,000 people surveyed by R.W. Baird & Co, 11 percent of existing Verizon customers are "definitely" buying a Verizon iPhone in the next three months, while another 18 percent will "probably" purchase it. Given Verizon's subscriber numbers, that could result in 19 million activations, according to Baird analyst William Power.
In addition, another 25 percent of Verizon smartphone users will definitely or probably buy an iPhone, adding another 4.8 million subscribers, or about 25 million in total. This is up from Baird's previous prediction of 10 million activations; 2 million from AT&T.
As some other analysts have suggested, Baird also found that most of Verizon's first iPhone buyers will likely be existing customers. Interest in the iPhone from AT&T users is "muted," Power found. About 5.6 percent of current AT&T iPhone users plan to get a Verizon iPhone, or about 1.1 million customers. About 3 percent of current AT&T feature phone users, or 700,000, plan to make the switch to Verizon.
About 2 percent of existing Sprint users will switch to Verizon for the iPhone, while 6 percent of T-Mobile users will do the same, Power wrote.
Had the Verizon iPhone not been an option, about 43 percent of respondents said they would probably have opted for an Android phone, while 19 percent said they would have purchased a BlackBerry device. Another 19 percent said they would've stuck with their existing handset.
Baird conducted its survey on January 13, two days after Verizon made its iPhone announcement. About 40 percent of those surveyed already own an iPhone. Given the fact that its sample consisted of mostly corporate users, Baird acknowledged that its results overstates the sample of existing smartphone users dramatically. The average age was 43 and 59 percent were men.
Baird found that customers were also looking at tablets; about 20 percent had plans to buy a tablet in the next three months, and 75 percent wanted an iPad.
Earlier this month, ChangeWave predicted that about 26 percent of Apple iPhone users currently on AT&T plan to switch to a Verizon iPhone. Buyers and analysts only have a few more days to wait; Verizon starts accepting pre-order at 3am on February 3.
For more, see PCMag's hands on with the Verizon iPhone.