The September 11th attack
Cell phone sales, use expected to rise
Bloomberg News Service
New York — Verizon Wireless Inc., AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and other mobile-phone carriers may see an increase in sales in coming weeks amid heightened safety concerns following last week's terrorist attacks in the United States, analysts said.
Associated Press
"Whenever there is a concern about keeping in touch, safety, that kind of thing, it buoys demand for mobile phones," said Keith Mallinson, executive vice president at market researcher Yankee Group.
United Airlines ticket holders pass the time with their cell phones at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Traders, bankers and others at the center of the attacks on the World Trade Center made frantic cell-phone calls to friends and family after the planes hit or as they evacuated, assuring them they were leaving. Passengers on the flights used mobile phones to call family and alert authorities.
Mobile phones have played a role for rescue workers. AT&T Wireless, Nextel Communications Inc., Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless and Sprint Corp.'s PCS unit donated thousands of phones for relief workers.
But analysts said the increase in wireless-phone sales will be temporary.
"There might be a short pickup in sales, just as there will be a short depression in airline travel," said Herschel Shosteck, chairman of the Shosteck Group research firm, who feels that this will not change overall subscriber growth trends. Shosteck said he expects carriers to add 20 million to 24 million new customers this year, as previously forecast.
Carriers such as Sprint PCS processed more than double the number of usual calls after the attacks, according to a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter research note. Call volume on wireless networks likely will remain higher than normal for a while, the report said.
