This Friday being D-Day for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone (6 p.m. at your local Apple Store or AT&T (T) corporate store), the notes are going to be coming faster and more furious speculating on the implications for this or that wireless party. You’ll be reading more feverishly dashed off features about iPhone, such as last week’s comparison in the Financial Times of smart-phone features. (Subscription required.) Dow Jone’s own Walt Mossberg reportedly has a unit of the iPhone, and I expect he’ll chime in this week with some of his findings.

But on a stock front, as I warned recently, I think a lot of the reports coming out will increasingly trumpet the dominance of AT&T and the Verizon Wireless unit of Verizon Communications (VZ) in the U.S. wireless business, with Sprint-Nextel (S) and Deutsche Telekom’s (DT) T-Mobile struggling.

  • Bank of America’s David Barden says Verizon says pricing has become the biggest concern of investors in wireless stocks, who are petrified that the maturing of the cellular industry in the U.S. is going to lead to disastrous price cutting. The good news is that phones, rather than contracts, have become the swing factor for carriers, and the average price of a handset in the U.S. remained about what it was in the first quarter, $196, signalling that discounting and subsidies are not disastrous at this point. The Verizon Wireless operation of Verizon Communications (VZ), writes Barden, was the most active among U.S. cellular operators in adding new phone models “in the run-up to the availability of the iPhone,” putting 8 new handsets into its lineup, and also offered the biggest handset discounts, at 10% off, lowered average post-discount prices by the greatest amount, 6% off, and had the most new free phones in the quarter at 5. (Barden says Nokia (NOK), Samsung (SSNLF.PK), and Motorola (MOT) all gained shelf space in the quarter, the first two moreso than Moto.) Barden’s conclusion: with the exception of Sprint, “price discipline” is being maintained at U.S. cellular operators — so far. Barden has a Buy on AT&T and Verizon, and a Neutral rating on Sprint.

    And here’s an interesting factoid: the average price per voice minute among U.S. cellular operators in the second quarter was $0.066, down from 7 cents in the same period a year earlier.

  • Cowen & Co.’s Tom Watts has a raft of observations of his own today on the wireless vendors. “He concludes that AT&T will capture a near-term advantage as users flock to the iPhone, buying into high-priced service plans, as increased store traffic also stimulates sales of less expensive phones.” He expects Verizon to “punch back to iPhone,” echoing a theme heard increasingly, which is that AT&T’s gain will not be Verizon’s pain. “Verizon will still gain share, even with iPhone launch,” writes Watts. Verizon will likely offer more upgrade promotions to retain subscribers and to counter iPhone with something he deems competitive, such as, perhaps, the Prada-branded phone from LG Electronics (). And even though he’s lowering his estimate for Verizon’s net subscriber additions in 2008, Cowen says he still expects Verizon to gain one-tenth of a percent of market share next year, mainly at the hands of Sprint and T-Mobile. Mind you, Watts concedes that if there’s a sort of “perfect storm,” in which the ban on Qualcomm (QCOM) phones coming into the U.S. hurts Verizon and Sprint, and the iPhone is a raging success, it could give AT&T a half-a-point lead in market share in 2008. He has an Outperform rating on Verizon, but AT&T is his top pick. Watts thinks AT&T will pick up 1.5 million net new subscribers in 2007, 4 million in 2008, thanks in large part to the iPhone. He sees tougher times for Sprint: “Even prior to the iPhone, Sprint had a tough time convincing wireless users why they should buy Sprint instead of AT&T or Verizon.”
  • And Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) reports earnings this Thursday, and UBS Investment Research analyst Maynard Um is raising his price target to $210 on the stock from $180 as he raises his 2008 earnings per share estimate by a penny to $4.91 and his 2009 estimate from $6.28 to $6.45. The change reflects increased hardware sales Maynard thinks will come from higher subscriber rates and a decent replacement demand by existing subscribers. Um says he thinks RIM is doing fine with its recently introduced “Curve” multimedia version of the Blackberry, but he expects the outlook from RIM management to be “conservative” given that its unknown what kind of impact the iPhone will have. He’s looking for sales of $1.047 billion and earnings per share, excluding options expense, of $1.07. Um’s price target reflects a 30x to 35x multiple of his projected earnings for next year, which he thinks is reasonable “given a scarcity of high-growth stories.”
  • Piper Jaffray wireless hardware analyst T. Michael Walkley says Palm, maker of the Treo, will be the hardest hit by the iPhone among device makers. “With the BlackBerry Curve ramping and iPhone launching June 29th at AT&T, we view Treo as the most impacted by these launches and anticipate even further declines in sell through trends.” He says clerks at AT&T stores had already reported “frustration” in trying to sell Palm’s “750″ series of Treo phones. Moreover, the upcoming introduction of a new model of BlackBerry, the 8830, at Sprint stores, will hurt sales of Palm’s recently introduced 755p model. He rates Palm shares “Market Perform.” Like Um, Walkley is raising estimates, saying new models of BlackBerry will continue to produce upside. Walkley’s a little surprised that the BlackBerry Pearl, introduced last year, is still outselling the more sophisticated “Curve,” which features more multimedia capabilities. While he’s concerned the Curve could get buried by the iPhone deluge, given a similar focus by the two devices on music and multimedia, he’s hopeful that all the folks brought into AT&T stores by the iPhone may also consider the BlackBerry. Walkley’s forecast for the May-ending quarter is more aggressive than Um’s, with a projected $1.056 billion in revenue and $1.09 in earnings per share. He’s rasing his price target on RIM to $166 from $158, though that’s still below Rimm’s price today.
  • All discussion of $600 consumer gadgets must raise the question, Will the consumer cooperate? Merrill Lynch economist Brian Belski says inflation worries continue to weigh on consumer discretionary spending. (I know, I know: for some of you out there, the iPhone is NOT discretionary.) But he sees no reason for panic yet:

    We clearly are concerned about everyday inflation for mom and pop America […] For now, we do not see any reason to hit the panic button. We believe that as long as unemployment remains low and income continues to rise, discretionary spending should hold up longer term. In addition, the sector’s performance probably reflects a lot of the bad news from higher energy costs and the slumping housing market, in our opinion. Nevertheless, we will be monitoring the jobs data closely as the summer and fall unfold, with trajectory change (to the downside) providing a potential catalyst to become incrementally more negative on the sector.

Today, the shares are doing this:

  • AT&T shares are up 2% at $39.59;
  • Verizon shares are up 1% at $42.06;
  • Sprint shares are up 1.36% at $22.32;
  • Duetsche Telekom stock is off a fraction at $18.13;
  • Palm shares are off .7% at $16.68;
  • RIM stock is down 1.42% at $179.90;
  • Nokia shares are up fractionally at $27.77;
  • Motorola shares are up nearly 1% at $18.04.
  • and Apple shares are up slightly at $123.74.

Addendum: Bloomberg has a think piece this morning saying the 44% rise in Apple stock since chief executive Steve Jobs talked about the phone on January 9 may be setting up investors for a fall if Apple sells only 100,000 phones this weekend. The story quotes analyst Andy Hargreaves at Pacific Crest Securities as saying “‘If they only sell 100,000, that would be bad’ and the stock will fall. Hargreaves is one of two analysts predicting two-day sales of 200,000.” The Bloomberg piece goes on to say that UBS Investment Research Benjamin Reitzes conjectures that AT&T may pay Apple $5 to $10 per month per subscriber and is estimating sales of 150,000 iPhones this weekend. The other analyst quoted as predicting 200,000 units this weekend is Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster.