Verizon’s official unveiling of the Motorola Droid phone seems to be giving the telecom giant a lift. It’s currently the biggest positive contributor to a Dow that’s firmly in the red. Dow Jones reports that the highly-anticipated Droid phone — from Motorola — represents a major bid by Verizon to counter the iPhone, which has been eating into its results in recent quarters.
Carried on Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone, the droid will start selling in Verizon stores Nov. 6 at $199. The phone is based on Google’s open-source Android mobile operating system, which means that anyone can tinker with the code to customize the phone. Verizon shares are up 2.5%. Apple is down 1.5%, which is weighing heavily on the Nasdaq.
Apple’s partner in the iPhone, AT&T, is up on the day, about 2.1%, helped out by slightly better-than-expected earnings and a rosier outlook from Qwest, which boosted the telecom services sector. Also helping AT&T might be the fact that Verizon started selling the touch-screen BlackBerry Storm 2 in stores Wednesday for $179.99. While there was a bit of buzz about the Storm 2 a couple months back, the early reaction today from consumers seems to indicate that the device doesn’t represent much of a threat to the iPhone, which is so important to Apple, said Todd Rethemeier, managing director of Hudson Square Research.
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