LONDON-Symbian Ltd. said its operating results for the first half of 2004 show global shipments of Symbian OS-based phones nearly doubled to 5 million, as compared to the first half of 2003 when 2.7 million units were shipped.
Six months into this year, six Symbian OS licensees were shipping 23 Symbian OS products to operators in Japan and other GSM/GPRS territories worldwide. In all, 34 phones based on the Symbian platform were under development by 10 licensees. Those include GSM/GPRS 2.5G products, W-CDMA 3G phones, regionally segmented products and market segment-targeted devices.
Commercially available third-party applications for Symbian-based phones reached 2,954, compared with 1,323 applications at the end of the first half of 2003.
“Symbian looks forward to further phones based on Symbian OS being announced and commencing shipment during the second half of the year,” said David Levin, CEO, Symbian. “Sales of phones recently announced and to be announced during the second half will largely determine Symbian’s full year performance.”
Recent research from Canalys shows the Symbian platform is gaining market share over the competition, including Microsoft and PalmSource.
For second-quarter 2004, more than 2.4 million Symbian OS phones shipped vs. 1.36 million Microsoft OS phones and 1.34 PalmSource devices, according to the market research firm. Symbian therefore garnered 41-percent market share, up from 36.5-percent market share in the same period last yearMicrosoft meanwhile reached 22.9-percent market share against 22.6 percent last year.
PalmSource’s market share fell from 30.9 percent a year ago to 22.5 percent in the second quarter of this year.
Canalys also reported that Nokia Corp. dominated the overall global mobile smart device market with 33.2-percent market share of the second quarter. Also, Canalys said Nokia was responsible for more than 80 percent of Symbian-based devices shipped in the quarter. The manufacturing giant remained second to palmOne in North America though, where the Treo 600 is the leading smart phone.
“The European-based smart-phone vendors have found it difficult to make headway in the North American market so far, but palmOne cannot afford to underestimate the momentum of Symbian,” said Chris Jones, Canalys’ senior analyst and director, adding that though still lagging compared to the previous quarter, “Nokia has closed the gap on palmOne in North America.”
Worldwide, palmOne followed Nokia with 18-percent market share, then Hewlett-Packard with 9 percent; Research In Motion Ltd. with 8.2 percent; and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications L.P. at 3.8 percent. Other companies made up 27.8 percent.
