Verizon Wireless could sell iPhones next year

Globe Staff

Verizon Wireless, the country's largest mobile-phone carrier, will start selling iPhones to customers in January, Bloomberg News is reporting.

Bloomberg cited "two people familiar with the plans" as the basis for its report. Verizon Wireless rival AT&T has had exclusive claim on the device in the United States since Apple Inc. debuted the iPhone in 2007.

Wall Street analysts told Bloomberg that Verizon Wireless may sell as many as 12 million iPhones next year. Officials for Apple and Verizon Wireless declined to comment for the article.

Earlier this month, Apple introduced its iPhone 4, an event that had consumers lining up outside stores around the world, including stores in the Boston area.

According to Globe high-tech columnist Hiawatha Bray, some of the iPhone 4's best features are embedded in the upgraded operating system, iOS 4.

"You can finally run multiple apps simultaneously, something that users of other smartphones take for granted," Bray wrote recently. "At last, iPhone users will be able to play music while they surf websites, or track their GPS location while they’re chatting. IOS 4 offers a very good tool for managing multiple apps."

The iPhone 4 also includes a built-in videoconferencing feature, and Bray has written that the new phone is part of Apple's efforts to stay a step ahead of rival smartphones powered by Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

In theory, an arrangement with Verizon Wireless that would make iPhones available to Verizon Wireless's large customer base would also help in that effort.

To read some recent Globe coverage of the iPhone, please click here.

(The picture of the iPhone 4 that appears with this post is an AP file photo.)