Not long after some of the last fourth-quarter financials were released last week, unofficial word started coming that first-quarter sales for wireless services don’t look so hot.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Christopher King earlier this week lowered his postpaid net subscriber forecasts for the first quarter for both Verizon Wireless and AT&T, saying recent checks suggest a meaningful slowdown in new subscriber activity.

King reduced his postpaid net add forecast for the first quarter by 300,000 at AT&T (to 450,000) and by about 350,000 at Verizon Wireless (to 639,000). King’s note referenced what could be some near-term cautious commentary coming from management teams over the next couple of weeks at various investor conferences and CTIA.

Possible factors cited for the slowdown include the economy, poor weather, faster-than-expected market saturation and consumers waiting for potential iPhone carrier changes.

Bad weather certainly could affect phone sales, especially for the majority that still like to go to a physical store to buy a device, although once the weather clears up, you’d expect some of those who were planning to buy to follow through.

The economy is another understandable reason and may be why some no-contract carriers are feeling pretty good about their business. A segment of consumers might still be holding out for AT&T to lose its exclusivity on the iPhone, but my suspicion is that won’t run out until next year, or five years after the first iPhone debuted. (I have no insider knowledge; it’s just a guess.) As for market saturation – probably most wireless executives saw that coming a mile or 10 ago.

King’s note came after Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett last week declared that “wireless simply can’t be described as a ‘growth’ industry anymore.” Moffett pointed out that wireless industry revenue growth in the fourth quarter was 2.6 percent and for all of 2009, wireless industry revenue grew just 3.3 percent.

Bernstein analysts project further slowing in postpaid, with an expectation of 2010 postpaid subscriber growth of just 1.2 percent. Prepaid is expected to grow 18.2 percent, and much of that is attributed to M2M subscriptions that contribute little to revenue.

It should be noted that Moffett is the same person quoted about one year ago as saying the wireless industry was “collapsing” and the whole wireless business was “grinding to a halt.” You get the idea where he’s coming from.

Something else of note: Moffett says as traditional wireless services mature and emerging services continue to expand, the difference between what investors thought of as a “subscriber” and the reported data on subscriber growth going forward will diverge more and more. The reporting structures currently in place were designed for a traditional voice handset environment, not one where the “growth baton” has been handed off to Kindles and iPads and other yet-to-be invented devices, he says. It’s a good point. For quite some time, there’s been talk of creating new metrics to reflect industry changes, but I’ve yet to hear a clear answer on what those metrics are going to be.
Is the sky falling and therefore we should expect a dismal feeling at the CTIA show later this month? I don’t think anyone in the wireless industry would be surprised to see slower growth after attaining a U.S. penetration rate of around 90 percent of the population. In fact, it seems that we’ve been talking about “slower growth” for a quite a few years now as it relates to traditional new subscribers. 

Hence, carriers are looking at adding more M2M sales and other emerging categories to add more users or usage rather than single subscribers or additions to family plans. I’m not suggesting emerging devices on their own are going to rival all those new net adds that wireless carriers enjoyed for years. M2M traditionally has not been a high-ARPU business. But it’s one area, along with numerous verticals, that the wireless industry has identified as an area of growth. Last time I checked, some wireless carriers were at a conference in Atlanta this week touting their wares to the healthcare industry.

The industry may not be growing in the same way it was for many years, but it’s moving in other directions to find growth.