Only 3 percent of iPhone owners are willing to break their AT&T (NYSE: T) contract when the iPhone becomes more widely available sometime next year, according to a survey conducted by Credit Suisse equity analysts. As a result, Credit Suisse has upgraded AT&T’s stock to “Outperform” from “Neutral” because concerns of a widespread exodus from AT&T have most likely been overblown.
The report is likely accurate. After all, customers will be reluctant to pay a fee to end their AT&T contract early or spend more cash to buy a Verizon-enabled (or other carrier-enabled) iPhone. Plus, there’s nothing preventing Verizon Wireless or other carriers from either charging more than AT&T — for the service or the device. At the same time, AT&T has been working hard to repair fill holes in its network coverage.
Credit Suisse found that only 18 percent of iPhone owners are willing to leave when their contract expires. Furthermore, 42 percent of iPhone users are completely satisfied with AT&T. Those numbers are still more extreme for iPhone owners when compared to AT&T’s subscriber base as a whole. For instance, even fewer users, or 9 percent, would be willing to leave when their contract expires, and even more, or 51 percent, of AT&T subscribers are satisfied with the service.
With these answers taken into account, Credit Suisse expects 1.4 million AT&T iPhone users (of the 18 million expected by the end of the year) to switch to Verizon Wireless. Verizon remains the largest threat with other carriers unlikely to many iPhone users from AT&T: 63 percent of respondents said they’d stay with AT&T, 23 percent said they’d switch to Verizon, 3 percent to Sprint (NYSE: S) and 2 percent to T-Mobile.
The last broker to upgrade AT&T’s stock was Deutsche Bank in late July, reports MarketWatch. Analyst Brett Feldman listed AT&T as a “buy” rating based on expected earnings growth, as well as

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