Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Tuesday:
Refund: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been reticent to offer refunds on digital purchases made through its iPhone app store, but that may be changing – in Taiwan. The Economic Times (via Mac Rumors) confirmed that Apple is now complying with a new Taiwanese law that requires businesses to offer one-week return policies. Apple has offered refunds everywhere on a limited case-by-case basis, but its policy in the past has been to not offer trial versions of apps. Whether Apple will begin to offer refunds in other territories remains to be seen.
Missing Market: Horace Dediu, an analyst with Asymco, compiled data issued by ITU and Deutsche Bank and came to a troubling conclusion, at least for Apple’s shareholders: The company’s iPhone business isn’t reaching 70% of the potential mobile phone market. According to the details of Dediu’s study (reprinted at 9 to 5 Mac), of the 5.2 billion mobile phones used by consumers, 3.7 billion are prepaid phones, where the owner pays for access to cellular and data networks as needed. Only 1.5 billion are subscription-based phones, like the iPhone offered by AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ) in the U.S. As Dediu says, “That means that nearly 70% of the world is not being addressed by the iPhone as it currently stands. Put another way, a shift in positioning might result in a 250% increase in addressable market.” Apple has taken some steps into that market recently: It began offering “unlocked” iPhones, which are not tied to a specific telecom’s network, through its website earlier this year.
Kamikaze Sprint: Dan Hesse, CEO of beleaguered telecom Sprint (NYSE:S), is doing everything in his power to prevent AT&T and T-Mobile from merging, according to a Tuesday report at Bloomberg. His plans include a series of “nukes” to block the merger, including gathering testimony from technology CEOs against the merger. Hesse is also trying to get 18 state regulators to investigate the union. While rumors suggest that Sprint will join AT&T and Verizon as Apple partners before the year is out, it’s doubtful that Sprint can survive as an independent company for that long after T-Mobile’s merger with AT&T.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.
