To paraphrase the keynote, “we are the best cement company, and thanks to us there have been some fantastic buildings and architecture constructed around the world using our cement.”
White Symbian has a much more technological focus than Blue Circle, it still has the same role for its partners. By providing a solid base, and act as the connecting glue in the smartphone eco-system, Symbian has become one of the key partners in the rapidly expanding smartphone industry – which was a message that CEO Nigel Clifford was keen to stress at The 2006 Smartphone Show Keynote this morning – there was little focus on the nuts and bolts of the Operating System, that’s for the rest of the event – but more on the ecosystem.
Pointing out some impressive numbers - Symbian powered devices outselling other consumer electronic devices by five times, dedicated music phones outselling the Apple iPod range in 2006 by almost 2:1 – the clear message was that even if you don’t realise what is powering the smartphone revolution, Symbian has enabled a new market that is set to overtake the combined sales of desktop and laptop PC’s in the next few years. By feeding and growing an ecosystem of smaller, faster and cooler phones, that work on faster mobile networks, consuming more and more multimedia (that require smaller and faster phones), Symbian can drive towards their vision of a smartphone in every pocket.
A number of key markets were identified, with a particular focus on the developing nations that are skipping over entire product lines – for example a number of those countries are simply not seeing any traction in low spec PC’s with basic internet connectivity – they are replicating these features with the smartphone. Interestingly, one of the trends that is stimulating the GDP of developing nations is access to a mobile phone.
The youth market is going to be one of the major areas – with 2 billion potential users having access to one trillion dollars of disposable income the generation that will be brought up with 24/7 access to the internet, whoever can predict their demands will have a strong base to work from – of course the flipside is they are 100% brutal in their assessment of any new service, completely au fait with the latest fashions and social networking sites, and are going to be looking for ideas that probably haven’t even been considered yet.
Looking forward over the next five years, Symbian see that 30% of all mobile phones sold will be in the smartphone category, and Symbian OS will need to ensure that that it is fit for whatever purpose needed (a flagship launch device, mid-range volume phones, new multimedia devices). Given that four out of the top five handset manufactures in the world are now running version nine of Symbian OS, they are one of the best placed companies to deliver this.
Given the amount of time available, Clifford took a broad overview of the topics that will shape mobile in the coming years. While Symbian may not interface directly with customers it understands that changing consumer needs and lifestyles must be at the heart of what Symbian is and does.
Nigel wants us to live the Smartphone Lifestyle – and that sounds good to us.