Full Press Release
Symbian OS shipments rise 131% to 8.54m in Q3 2005
LONDON, United Kingdom – 16th November 2005 – Symbian Limited, developer and licensor of Symbian OS, the global market-leading mobile operating system for advanced mobile phones, today released the following unaudited financial and operational figures for the third quarter ended 30th September 2005:
Q3 2005 Highlights
- Q3 2005 shipments of Symbian OS™ phones rise 131% to reach 8.54m (Q3 2004 – 3.70m), taking shipments in 2005 so far to more than 23m (Q1-Q3 2004 – 8.69m).
- Symbian OS worldwide installed base reaches almost 48 million phones.
- 60 separate Symbian OS phone models shipping worldwide from eight licensees at 30 September 2005 (30 September 2004 – 29 phone models, six licensees).
- 56 Symbian OS phone models are under development by 11 licensees (end of Q3 2004, 38 phones & variants and 10 licensees) (see Notes to Editors for definitions).
- Six new Symbian OS phone models commenced shipping in Q3, from Fujitsu, Mitsubishi and Nokia and Samsung, bringing the total number of phones commencing shipment in 2005 so far to 24:
- Fujitsu’s FOMA™ Raku-Raku PHONE II for NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA 3G network targets older subscribers with features such as the ability to slow speech received on the phone, improving the quality of the audio to help users hear easily, clearly and at their own speed.
- Fujitsu’s FOMA F700iS, also for NTT DoCoMo, is designed to connect to the “FOMA plus area” which uses the 800MHz band in areas where regular FOMA coverage is not available.
- Mitsubishi’s FOMA D701i is the company’s third phone for the FOMA network and is compatible FOMA services and functions such as videophone, ChakuUta™ ring songs, ChakuMotion™ ring videos, Deco-mail™ decorative emails.
- The Nokia 6682 is a tri-band imaging mobile device designed for the Americas markets where EDGE networks have been deployed.
- The Nokia N90 targets the imaging market with high performance still and video capabilities based on Carl Zeiss optics.
- Samsung SGH-D730 is a tri-band GSM/GPRS clamshell smartphone that is one of the smallest and lightest, feature-rich, Symbian OS-enabled phones.
- Cingular Wireless announced its introduction of the EDGE-powered Nokia 9300 business device to the U.S. marketplace.
- 19 phones of the 60 Symbian OS phones shipping at the end of Q3 2005 are designed for 3G W-CDMA networks deployed in Europe and in Asia.
- The Nokia 6680 has been recognised by IDC as the world’s best selling 3G handset *
- 4, 409 third party applications for Symbian OS phones are now commercially available, up 57% (end Q3 2004 – 2,801 applications) (Source: Symbian research, see Notes to Editors for methodology).
* See : http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=pr2005_10_13_112836
Chief Executive Commentary, Nigel Clifford, Chief Executive Officer, Symbian Ltd said:
Operational review
“Symbian continues to progress in line with our expectations, with 8.5 million phones based on Symbian OS shipping in the third quarter to retailers and to more than 200 network operators, representing a 131% increase in phone shipments on the equivalent period in 2004. At the end of Q3 2005, the installed base of Symbian OS phones reached almost 48m. The annual run rate of Symbian OS unit shipments in the past 12 months almost 29 million phones (Q3 2003 - Q3 2004 - 11.45m). At the end of Q3, 60 models from 8 licensees were shipping, of which six were launched during the Quarter by Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Nokia and Samsung.
The number of Symbian OS phones in development continues to grow with a total of 56 Symbian OS phones in development by 11 Symbian OS licensees (end Q3 2004 – 38 phones, 10 licensees). Licensees that have launched new but not yet commercially available Symbian OS products: Arima, BenQ, Lenovo, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson.
Symbian OS maintains its position as the industry’s leading development platform for phones designed for 3G networks. At the end of the Quarter, 19, or 32%, of Symbian OS phones in the market were developed for W-CDMA networks across Europe and Asia. This includes the Nokia 6680 which market researchers IDC recognised in October as the world’s best selling 3G handset.
Market
Symbian’s quarterly figures demonstrate Symbian’s leadership - and the rapid growth - of the global market for phones based on advanced operating systems. Nonetheless, shipments of Symbian OS phones remain small relative to the size of the overall handset market.
Symbian’s strategy continues to focus on driving adoption of Symbian OS as a development platform both for advanced mobile devices and for lower price, high volume handsets. Importantly it also represents a platform upon which network operators can deliver new non-voice services and content, particularly as commercial deployment of higher bandwidth 3G networks advances.
This trend reflects the growing ‘horizontalisation’ of the mobile handset industry. That is handset manufacturers finding it more cost-effective to outsource development of next generation operating systems to third party specialists and network operators seek to manage the deployment of revenue-generating non-voice services and content cost-effectively. Good examples of this emerging trend among handset manufacturers and operators are Fujitsu, Nokia and NTT DoCoMo.
Fujitsu and Nokia have demonstrated that basing advanced handset development on consistent Symbian OS-based technology platforms has enabled them to create multiple devices that target specific market segments, with diverse form factors and functionality, quickly and cost-effectively. Likewise, the experience of NTT DoCoMo has shown how adoption of a Symbian OS-based technology platform can support the cost-effective development of non-voice revenue streams by network operators. Symbian is strategically well-positioned to take advantage of this emerging trend.
Technology
Symbian OS development activities continue to progress its suitability as a platform for the development of high performance mobile devices in multiple market segments. These enhancements target reducing build and development costs for phones based on Symbian OS in order to assure its competitiveness with licensees’ in-house proprietary operating systems.
Publicly announced technology developments include the Symbian OS™ Real Time Compatibility Layer (RTCL). This technology exploits the advanced real-time capabilities of Symbian OS's real-time kernel architecture to enable Symbian OS to run a phone’s network signalling software, thus removing the need for a separate signalling processor, facilitating a significant build and development cost reduction for such handsets.
Symbian’s collaboration with the semi-conductor community targets the development of reference designs for Symbian OS. Reference designs pre-integrate Symbian OS with the targeted processor, removing the need for licensees to undertake this work for themselves. Reference designs enable significant handset development cost reductions and can provide faster time to market. At the Smartphone Show in October, Intel demonstrated a 3G reference platform using Symbian OS™ v9 and Intel XScale® technology.
In September, Symbian delivered to its licensees the latest release in the Symbian OS v9 family. Symbian OS v9.2 provides a range of fundamental enhancements in areas such as start-up and applications performance. Other developments support functionality for specific markets such as the enterprise with enhancements in areas such as data synchronization, management of scheduling invites as well as push email. Products based on Symbian OS v9.2 are anticipated to come to market during the second half of 2006.
Outlook
Symbian continues to maintain its lead in the smartphone market. Strategically Symbian looks to leverage its success, particularly in 3G markets, to drive adoption of Symbian OS in high volume handsets as well as in the higher end advanced ‘smartphone’ market. Symbian is well positioned to take advantage of the emerging trend towards platformization by both handset vendors and network operators as they take up the opportunities in business models beyond voice communication. Symbian’s full year 2005 performance will be significantly influenced by Symbian OS licensees’ products launches during the latter part of the year.”
Symbian Limited Q3 2005 results
Unaudited Financial and Operational Highlights
| Q3 2005 | Q2 2005 | Q3 2004 | ||
| Symbian OS Units | 8.54m | 7.77m | 3.70m | |
| Average Royalty / Unit * | US$5.0 | US$5.3 | US$5.5 | |
| Royalty GP % * | 86% | 86% | 84% | |
| Turnover (£m) | £'m | £'m | £'m | |
| Royalties * | 23.8 | 21.8 | 11.3 | |
| Consulting services | 4.0 | 3.9 | 4.3 | |
| Partnering & Other | 0.8 | 1.1 | 0.7 | |
| Total | 28.6 | 26.8 | 16.3 | |
| End Q3 2005 | End Q2 2005 | End Q3 2004 | ||
| No. of products in market | 60 | 54 | 29 | |
| No. of licensees with products in market | 8 | 7 | 6 | |
| No. of products in development | 56 | 50 | 38 | |
| No. of licensees with products in development | 11 | 11 | 10 | |
| * Royalties comprise Symbian OS & UIQ | ||||
These results do not constitute statutory accounts. They were prepared under the same accounting policies stated in the lasted audited accounts of the Company, which have been filed with Companies House and may be obtained from the Company Secretary, Symbian Limited, 2-6 Boundary Row, Southwark, London, SE1 8HP, United Kingdom.