Symbian rings up 100th phone

Symbian has boasted that a recent contract win brings the number of mobile phones that use its operating system to 100. However, the firm seemed to be at a loss to name which phone reached the magic number. 

"There's a big question about what was the hundredth device because things come out so quickly," Thomas Chambers, chief financial officer at Symbian, told vnunet.com. "I guess the most obvious candidate is the Nokia 3250." 

Symbian said it couldn't be sure because two other phones shipped on the same day in other territories.

As part of its latest financial results, Symbian claimed it is seeing strong growth in Japan, with 26 of the 100 handsets released being from that market.

The company also acknowledged a surge in China now that it had enabled local script on its phones.

"Symbian is seeing very good growth in Europe, primarily driven by Nokia but with some good follow-on products from other licensees such as Sony Ericsson," said Chambers. 

The one market the company seemed happy to concede to its rivals is America, which Chambers joked was "still behind the rest of the world" as there are not so many Symbian devices in the country.

Chambers added that the US continues to concentrate on RIM, Microsoft and Palm.
"America is a funny market in that everyone is used to using PCs there so they tend not to have mobile handsets like we take for granted over here," he said.

Rachel Lashford, senior analyst at Canalys, agreed that PC use had hindered the uptake of mobile services in the US. 

"There is much higher PC and broadband penetration in the US so one argument, which is correct to a certain extent, is that people have not seen the need to have voice and data access on the move. I think that is changing now," she said.

Chambers pointed to other cultural divides between UK consumers and their counterparts across the Atlantic.

"Americans tend not to think of mobile phones as fashion items, whereas here it's a consumer fashion item and you wouldn't be seen without one," he said.

Lashford agreed that this is one reason why Nokia has not yet replicated its global market success in America. 

"When you look at the devices that are popular, they're not really the funky cool devices. It's more about mobile messaging," she said.

"They're still bought by individuals predominantly, but perhaps used more for corporate applications."

Chambers admitted that Symbian is more interested in the high volume consumer market, despite the lower cost of the handsets.

"You've got the enterprise users at the top end and we certainly play in that space, but it's not where the big volumes are," he said.

Of the 100 Symbian devices that have been released, 66 remain on the market and 34 have been withdrawn. Symbian claimed that there are another 56 products under development.