But, if you were shipping 100M phones a year, you'd be stupid not to mfg them...
Note in this mornings WSJ, that AAPL ain't doin' so well in Europe. That's b/c some carriers there don't subsidize the phones, the consumers buy them outright. That makes the plans cheaper too. You know, if it weren't for the subsides, Apple wouldn't be making a lot of money, the carriers would be doing better and have more money to build the infrastructure they need from these smartphones hogging the airwaves. This all started when the FCC decided that we need multiple systems in place to ensure competition instead of a monolithic GSM. That split the business into 5ths so in order to survive the carriers came up with gouging both the caller and the receiver minutes on the plan for the call whereas Europe only charged the caller. But, I digress.
Net net, I'm not sure the present subsidy model is going to make it. For sure, no one is going to again get away with what Apple is doing and they may not get away with it for too much longer. Just as the PC model is falling apart, the phone model may not follow in it's steps. There is a time when SOMEONE will supply phones and the technology to go along with it (iCloud, etc) such that the carriers can provide their own services (to make more money) instead of one company dictating what the services will be...
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