Symbian Reports 18.5 Million Handsets Using its OS Shipped in Q1
Smartphone OS vendor, Symbian has reported that 18.5 million Symbian mobile phones were shipped to consumers worldwide in Q1 of this year - a 16.5% increase on Q1 2007 (15.9m). The company also reported a 92% growth in consulting services from £2.5 million in Q1 2007 to £4.8 million in Q1 2008.
Nigel Clifford, Symbian CEO, commented “We are pleased to report yet another significant milestone for Symbian. With our customers shipping a total of 18.5 million Symbian mobile phones through over 250 major network operators globally in the quarter, we have now surpassed the 200 million cumulative shipment mark. In fact, by the end of the quarter, a cumulative total of 206 million Symbian mobile phones have been shipped by the world’s leading handset manufacturers and each of our licensees has shipped a new Symbian mobile phone model since the beginning of 2008.
The world’s five leading handset vendors announced nine products based on Symbian OS v9 during Q1 2008 including UIQ-based Motorola Z10, Sony Ericsson G700 and Sony Ericsson G900 as well as S60-based LG KT610, Nokia N96, Nokia N78, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia 6220 classic and Samsung G810. We also experienced an increased demand for consulting services which indicates a broadening and deepening customer phone project pipeline.”
Q1 shipments
Eight handset manufacturers launched 13 new Symbian models (multiple variants not included) bringing the total number of models in the market at the end of Q1 2008 to 154 with a total of 235 models shipped since the formation of Symbian. These cover a broad range of market segments and form factors including high-end converged devices, smartphones and mid-range mobile phones. The majority of these new phones are based on Symbian OS v9 including Symbian’s latest product offering, Symbian OS v9.3, which is currently shipping in Japan.
“Symbian continues to lead the smartphone OS market but is focused on increasing its share of the overall mobile phone market from 7% at the end of 2007” (Source: Strategy Analytics), said Nigel Clifford.
“For the past ten years, helping our customers succeed has been our number one priority. Deploying Symbian OS helps our licensees to differentiate their devices and deliver faster shipment times-to-market across multiple market segments as well as benefiting from Symbian’s superiority in platform quality, features and power management. Achieving 200 million devices is testament to the commitment to excellence of Symbian engineers and of our thriving ecosystem of thousands of developers. We’re pleased with our progress and excited about the next wave of mobile innovation,” he continued.
Posted to the site on 20th May 2008
