Verizon Is Said to Be Planning to Announce iPhone 4 on Its Network

SAN FRANCISCO — Verizon Wireless plans to announce on Tuesday that it will soon begin selling Apple’s iPhone 4, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans. The long-expected arrival of the iPhone on Verizon will end years of exclusivity for AT&T and is likely to upend the smartphone market in the United States.

It is not clear how soon after the announcement, which will be made in New York, the phone will be available for sale.

On Friday afternoon, Verizon invited reporters to a news conference on Tuesday morning at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. The company did not say what it planned to announce, but given the timing less than a week after top Verizon executives gave a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, speculation in tech circles was rampant that Verizon would announce that it would begin selling the iPhone.

Verizon’s intentions to unveil an iPhone running on the company’s CDMA network early this year have long been known. The person with direct knowledge of the event, who declined to be named because plans for it were supposed to be confidential, said the company would do so at the Tuesday event, which will be headlined by Lowell McAdam, Verizon’s president.

A spokesman for Verizon Wireless declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment.

While the iPhone remains the best-selling smartphone in the United States, many handset makers sell devices running Google’s Android software. Collectively, those devices outsell the iPhone.

Consumer surveys suggest that demand for a Verizon iPhone would be large, as many people have held off from buying an iPhone simply to avoid AT&T’s much-publicized network problems, which include spotty coverage and dropped calls.

A Verizon iPhone could help sell millions of new devices, continuing the iPhone’s strong momentum. It may also become an obstacle to the rapid rise of Android devices, most of which are sold by Verizon Wireless.

“It will significantly shift the power again toward Apple,” said Roger Entner, a telecommunications industry analyst with Recon Analytics. Mr. Entner said that in other countries where the iPhone added new carriers, including Britain, Apple’s market share rose sharply.

“Apple will significantly blunt the growth of Android,” he said.

Any shift toward the iPhone could be slowed by long-term contracts that may keep some customers from switching.

Customers “will not switch the first day,” said Charles Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Company. “It is going to take two years before everyone is out of a contract, but the shift will be dramatic,” Mr. Wolf said.