Verizon to take $5b hit the first year

THE BIG SQUEEZE: After Verizon Wireless starts selling the iPhone in February, the company may have to eat as much as $5 billion in subsidies over the following 12 months, the N.Y. Post reports. The $5 billion hit, the high end of Wall Street estimates, is the difference between the $199 price charged to customers and the estimated $620 Apple charges Verizon times the estimated 15 million phones one analyst is predicting Verizon will sell in the first year. "Apple is good at pointing a gun at someone's head and saying, 'You want our stuff? Here are our terms,'" Jack Gold of Jack Gold Associates told the Post. (1/12a)