There are now more than 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch devices in circulation. And while that’s enough for Apple to claim significant market share in the mobile market, many believe they could do better – perhaps a lot better – by ending their exclusivity arrangement with AT&T in the US.

According to a Wall Street analyst, in countries where Apple has gone non-exclusive, like in France, the company has seen significant sales increases. Combined with growing frustration from AT&T customers and their CEO’s own admission that exclusivity won’t last forever, it seems that there’s now a real possibility that the deal might come to an end as soon as next year.

That said, expect AT&T to go as far as they can to try and keep exclusivity in place as long as possible. About two-thirds of new AT&T customers sign up for iPhone, meaning that if suddenly the device were to go non-exclusive and consumers had their choice of carriers, it could create an enormous disruption to the carrier’s business. Unless of course they were to find another red hot handset to take its place (good luck).

More likely than not, it seems that’s a scenario we’ll see at some point in the not-too-distant future. And for once, the big winner will be consumers.

Tags: apple, att, iphone

Original post:
iPhone Moving Beyond AT&T in 2010? Maybe