iPhone for Verizon Landing in March 2011, Analyst Predicts

Even if Target and Sam's Club are getting ready to launch the iPhone in their own stores across the nation, talk about the iPhone launching on Verizon continues. While initial rumors paint the launch of the iDevice for Big Red's network anywhere in the first half of 2011, it looks like one analyst believes that it's "on track" for a March, 2011 release date. But, as we've heard in the past, it looks like the CDMA iPhone won't just be for Verizon, but for other international markets as well.

With talk that India is vying for their own version of the CDMA-based iPhone, as well as other markets with non-GSM networks, the belief that Apple is hard at work on a CDMA variant for their popular device is growing. According to Brian Marshall, an analyst for Gleacher & Co., the Verizon iPhone is "on track" for a launch in March of next year. And this isn't the first time he's made such a statement, as he pegged that particular month as a launch date five months ago.

Marshall went on to add that, "It won't be just for Verizon. There are international carriers that use CDMA, like KDDI in Japan, so I expect that Apple will make a big global push, not only in the US." It could be an indication for the future that Verizon has decided to start selling the iPad, Apple's tablet device, beginning at the end of October, or it could be completely irrelevant. Either way, the speculation regarding the Verizon-branded iPhone continues, and until Steve Jobs steps out on stage and makes an announcement one way or another, it's only going to pick up steam.

[via ComputerWorld]