Symbian strikes cautious tone

Symbian chief executive David Levin opened Symbian Expo in London today, admitting that the company had enjoyed only modest success to date. But he was bullish about the future.

Levin outlined the steady growth in the number of phones using the Symbian operating system and argued that the future was looking very promising.

"Our success to date has been at best modest, but we are just getting started," he told delegates.

"Five million phones in first half of this year is one hell of an achievement, but you have to put that against the millions of phones in the market."

Two million Symbian phones were shipped in 2002, rising to 6.7 million last year.

"Looking at trends in hardware, I believe that in the next four or five years most phones will have the hardware to benefit from an intelligent open operating system and we could have 200 million users," said Levin.

He also used the Expo to outline a partnership with Carphone Warehouse, which has launched a reference book entitled Symbian OS Smartphones for Dummies.

The book will be distributed through retail outlets, and is aimed at encouraging the use of the Symbian operating system.

"There is a whole new generation growing up with mobile phones," said Kevin Gillian, business development director at Carphone Warehouse.

"Buying a mobile phone is not that easy: you have to decide which handset, which supplier, who to buy from and what tariff. And that's even before you know how to use it. We must make it easier for customers to buy and use mobile phones."