Symbian OS is the global market-leading, open mobile operating system for smartphones.
Since the first 3G Symbian smartphones began shipping in Japan in 2003 there has been solid growth of Symbian OS-based models in Japan. In 2004, there were six Symbian OS-based models manufactured by Fujitsu and Nokia. In 2005, there were 14 models from Fujitsu, Nokia, Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Motorola, which soared to 44 models from six handset vendors including Sony Ericsson in 2006. As of May 2007, 55 Symbian OS based models have been shipped.
It took three years to reach the first 10 million Symbian smartphones and less than one year to reach the next 10 million. This growth was driven by the remarkable innovation from the advanced 3G mobile market in Japan, as well as the capabilities of Symbian OS in reducing time-to-market and meeting the requirements of handset vendors and network operators.
Kiyohito Nagata, Vice President Managing Director, Product Department, NTT DoCoMo, Inc., commented: "Symbian offers functionality, security and flexibility that the mobile phone market demands, fast. We would like to further strengthen our partnership with Symbian to provide mobile phones that answer the needs of our customers."
Haruhiko Hisa, President, Symbian Japan said: "We have reached the mark of shipping over 20 million Symbian smartphones as a result of the support we have been given by all our network operators, handset manufacturers and partners to become a more open and versatile OS. Going forward, we shall focus on contributing to the development of high function handsets at lower build costs as well as continuing to fulfill our important role of enlarging the mobile phone market."
Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones known as smartphones.
Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world's leading handset manufacturers and has built close co-operative business relationships with leading companies across the mobile industry. During Q1 2007, 15.9 million Symbian smartphones were sold worldwide to over 250 major network operators, bringing the total number of Symbian smartphones shipped up to 31 March 2007 to 126 million.
