Symbian OS phone shipments reach 14.4m in 2004

LONDON, United Kingdom – 10 May 2005 – Symbian Limited today released the following unaudited financial and operational figures for the first quarter ended 31st March 2005:

Highlights

• 2004 full year shipments of phones based on Symbian OS totalled 14.38m (2003 - 6.67m); year on year growth of 116%, the third consecutive year in which Symbian OS phone shipments have grown by more than 100%.
• Global shipments of Symbian OS phones in Q4 2004 reached 5.68m (Q4 2003 - 2.76m units), of which almost 2.5m phones shipped in December.
• At the end of December 2004, cumulative shipments of Symbian OS phones since Symbian’s formation reached just under 25m phones.
• During Q4 2004, 14 new phones based on Symbian OS commenced shipping from BenQ, Fujitsu, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic and Sony Ericsson.
• As at December 31st 2004, 41 phones from 8 Symbian OS licensees were shipping to more than 200 network operators around the world.
• Of the 41 Symbian OS phones shipping at the end of 2004, 9 were shipping to network operators in Japan and across Europe for use on W-CDMA (3G) networks.
• In Q4 2004, Sharp Corporation became the latest Symbian OS licensee. Also, Sharp and Sony Ericsson announced their intention to develop 3G phones based on Symbian OS for NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA network.
• At the end of Q4 2004, the number of commercially available third party applications for Symbian OS phones had almost doubled year on year to reach 4,001 (end Q4 2003 - 2,060 applications) (Source: Symbian research, see Notes to Editors for methodology).
• At the end of Q4 2004, 40 phones and variants based on Symbian OS were under development by 12 licensees (see Notes to Editors for definitions) (Q4 2003 - 26 phones and variants under development by 9 licensees).

David Levin, Chief Executive Officer, Symbian Ltd said:

Operational review

"Symbian continued to make good progress in the fourth quarter of 2004 with more than 5.6m phones based on Symbian OS shipping to retailers and to more than 200 network operators around the world. In 2004 as a whole, Symbian OS licensees shipped 14.4 million phones, taking the installed base of Symbian OS phones to just under 25 million phones.

In Q4 2004, a total of 14 new Symbian OS based products were launched by six Symbian OS licensees, taking the total number of Symbian OS-based products in the market to 41. The ‘pipeline’ of Symbian OS products in development continued to expand, with 40 Symbian OS phones and variants now under development by 12 Symbian OS licensees. The majority of these products are anticipated to come to market over the course of the next six to 18 months.

Symbian OS licensees are developing products for all types of network technologies (GSM / GPRS, CDMA, EDGE and W-CDMA), for a wide range of geographical and language-specific markets (Europe, North & Latin America, Japan, China), as well as targeting specific market segments such as enterprise, imaging and gaming.

Technology

With an installed base of almost 25 million phones, rising worldwide shipments, significant and material engagements with the world’s leading handset vendors and network operators, as well as the continuing growth of a commercially thriving product and application development community around Symbian OS, Symbian has achieved clear leadership of the global market for advanced mobile phone operating systems. In February 2005, Symbian launched the latest version of Symbian OS, Symbian OS v9. Enhancements in Symbian OS v9 focus on assuring its suitability for development of higher volume, mid-tier phones that provide network operators with the best possible platform for the cost-effective deployment of targeted value-added services and content to all segments of their customer base (See Symbian press release "Latest version of Symbian OS targets smartphones for mass market"). The licensing structure for Symbian OS v9 is identical to that agreed for recent versions of Symbian OS (see Notes to Editors). Phones based on Symbian OS v9 are anticipated to come to market during the second half of 2005.

Market

Symbian’s market position in Japan and in wider 3G markets continues to strengthen. Almost a quarter of all phones based on Symbian OS currently shipping are 3G phones. In November 2004, NTT DoCoMo made public its selection of Symbian OS as a common software platform for handsets designed for its 3G FOMA network. In December Symbian was pleased to welcome Sharp Corporation as the latest Symbian OS licensee. Sharp and Sony Ericsson have both announced their intention to join Fujitsu in developing handsets based on Symbian OS for NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA network and for 2.5G and 3G networks around the world.

Outlook

Symbian has a leading position in the advanced phone operating system market and is well placed to benefit as W-CDMA or 3G networks are deployed increasingly widely and as network operators look to offer more and more of their subscribers a broad range of commercial, value-added content and services."

- Ends -

Symbian Limited will hold a press conference today at 12.30 at Espace Miramar, La Croisette, Cannes, France.  If you wish to attend this press conference, please call Anatolie Papas on +44 7810 697306.

Symbian Limited Q4 2004 results
Unaudited Financial and Operational Highlights

	Q4 2004	Q3 2004	Q4 2003
Symbian OS Units	5.68m	3.70m	2.76m
Average Royalty / Unit *	US$5.7	US$5.5	US$6.7
Royalty GP % *	84%	84%	84%
Turnover (£m)	£'m	£'m	£'m
Royalties *	17.5	11.3	10.9
Consulting services	4.1	4.3	3.5
Partnering & Other	2.0	0.7	0.6
Total	23.6	16.3	15.0
Average permanent headcount	913	852	750
	End Q4 2004	End Q3 2004	End Q4 2003
No. of products in development	40	38	26
No. of licensees with products in development	12	10	9
Royalties comprise Symbian OS & UIQ

Symbian Limited 2004 results
Unaudited Financial and Operational Highlights

	2004	2003	2002
Symbian OS Units	14.38m	6.67m	2.00m
Average Royalty / Unit *	US$5.72	US$6.24	US$5.75
Royalty GP % *	84%	84%	74%
Turnover (£m)	£'m	£'m	£'m
Royalties *	45.2	25.5	7.7
Consulting services	17.5	17.1	20.2
Partnering & Other	3.8	2.8	1.6
Total	66.5	45.4	29.5
Average permanent headcount	836	734	653
* 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.

Notes to Editors

1.       Definitions and additional information

Royalty revenue – Symbian receives a royalty on each phone based on Symbian OS shipped by licensees. From Symbian OS v7.0 onwards, the royalty has been set at $7.25 per unit for the first 2 million units shipped by a licensee and $5 per unit thereafter. Symbian also receives additional royalty revenue for devices shipping with the UIQ user interface supplied by Symbian’s wholly-owned subsidiary, UIQ Technology AB. Symbian outsources certain technologies when either i) there is already an industry standard developed by another party (e.g. Java from Sun); or ii) the technology is more efficiently provided by an outside supplier (e.g. WAP / web browsers; personal computer connectivity).

Consulting revenue – Symbian undertakes consultancy activities to assist its licensees implement Symbian OS in new handsets. Symbian receives revenue to cover costs (including full overhead recovery) and provide a commercial gross profit. The level of consulting revenue will fluctuate depending upon the volume of new engagements with licensees; the ability of licensees to develop new Symbian OS phones without the assistance of Symbian; and, the ability of Symbian Competence Centers to provide support for licensee product development.

Partnering & Other revenue – Symbian derives a further revenue stream from training activities, partner activities (including the Symbian Platinum Partner Program) and trade shows (including the annual Symbian Exposium). These activities are designed to promote Symbian OS and are therefore priced only to enable cost recovery.

Products in development – Symbian defines a product in development on basis of the criteria below:

• Symbian OS licensee has a significant development team engaged on the project
• there is a clearly defined plan to take the product through development to shipping
• the product is anticipated to ship in commercial volumes

2.       Number of Symbian OS applications

Symbian tracks the number of commercially available Symbian OS applications. This is done through surveying the applications offered for sale by a wide range of on-line, commercial distributors of Symbian OS applications.

To be included in the count of Symbian OS applications, an application must be offered for sale by a company, not an individual.

Applications which are offered for sale but which do not meet these criteria are regarded as "Shareware". Symbian maintains separate counts for "Shareware", "Freeware" and "Open Source" applications.

Only applications written for, or specifically shown to work on, Symbian OS phones are included in the Symbian OS application count. The count includes applications written using any of the wide variety of programming languages supported by Symbian OS, including C++, Java (pJava or MIDP), AppForge Crossfire and OPL.

The number of Symbian OS applications does NOT include Java MIDlets that have not been developed specifically for, or have not been explicitly validated as running on Symbian OS phones. It is therefore likely that there are many more Java MIDlets that will run on Symbian OS phones.

3.       About Symbian

Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the global open industry standard operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones.

Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world's leading handset manufacturers. The following companies have licensed Symbian OS: Arima, BenQ, Fujitsu, LG, Lenovo, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Sendo, Sharp, Siemens, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. In 2004, over 14 million Symbian OS-based mobile phones were sold worldwide and almost 25 million have been sold to date.

Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom with offices in the United States, Europe, Israel, Australia and Asia (Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo).

For more information about Symbian:
Symbian
press@symbian.com