Research firm: Apple to become MVNO, iPhone ‘inevitable’

Market research firm Visiongain believes Apple will launch an “iPhone” and become a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) by the end of 2007. “Apple acknowledges the threat mobile handsets pose to portable MP3 players in the long term,” says Visiongain. “Apple will embrace mobile more fully and pose a greater threat to the mobile phone industry itself—as an MVNO challenging carriers and a cellphone brand challenging handset makers. Upcoming US MVNO Helio presents a good entry strategy for Apple’s iPhone, an own-brand Apple mobile phone that is likely to be launched by the company. Indeed, the release of which is both logical and inevitable.”