LONDON, United Kingdom - 2 September 2008 - Symbian Limited, the market leader in open operating systems for mobile phones, today released the following unaudited financial and operational figures for the second quarter ended 30 June 2008:
Nigel Clifford, Symbian CEO, commented:
"We are pleased to report that a total of 19.6 million Symbian mobile phones were shipped over 250 major network operators globally in the quarter. Symbian celebrated its tenth anniversary at the end of June, with a cumulative total of 225.9 million Symbian mobile phones shipped since formation. This number is based on nearly 250 models, designed and shipped by the world's leading handset manufacturers.
In ten years we've achieved an enormous amount. Together with our customers we have invented, built and continue to lead the smartphone market. We are particularly pleased that our customers have reported that Symbian mobile phones are strong contributors to their financial performance and that each of our licensees has shipped at least one new Symbian mobile phone model since the beginning of 2008.
We've worked hard to extend the close collaboration with our customers and operators and have built a strong product pipeline. Our highly innovative product roadmap will ensure that Symbian OS continues to lead in the high-end converged device and smartphone markets whilst its penetration into the mid-range segments increases. As proof of this, there are now 159 Symbian phone models available in the global market from eight handset vendors - a rise of 30% over last year - and another 92 phone models are in development. This is reflected in an increased demand for consulting services by 76%."
|
|
2008 H1 |
2007 H1 |
H1 YoY change |
Q2 2008 |
Q2 2007 |
Q2 YoY change |
|
Symbian OS Units |
38.1m |
34.6m |
10% |
19.6% |
18.7% |
5% |
|
Average Royalty / Unit |
US$3.7 |
US$4.4 |
-16% |
US$3.4 |
US$4.3 |
-21% |
|
Royalty GP% |
97% |
93% |
|
97% |
93% |
|
|
Turnover |
£m |
£m |
£m |
£m |
£m |
£m |
|
Royalties |
70.8 |
78.2 |
-9% |
32.9 |
40.3 |
-18% |
|
Consulting Services |
9.0 |
5.1 |
|
4.2 |
2.6 |
|
|
Partnering & Other |
1.5 |
2.1 |
|
0.7 |
1.2 |
|
|
Total |
81.3 |
85.4 |
-5% |
37.8 |
44.1 |
-14% |
|
|
End H1 2008 |
End H1 2007 |
YoY change |
|
Number of Symbian phone models in the market |
159 |
122 |
30% |
|
Number of Symbian phone models in the market since formation of Symbian |
249 |
187 |
33% |
|
Number of licensees with Symbian phone in the market |
8 |
8 |
|
|
Number of Symbian phone models in development |
92 |
62 |
48% |
14 new models commenced shipment in Q2 with a total of 27 new models shipping in H1. Q2 new models include the Motorola Z10, Nokia E71, Nokia N78 and Nokia 6220, Samsung G810, Sony Ericsson G700 and Sony Ericsson G900, and several handsets for the Japanese market including NTT DOCOMO's FOMA SO906i, F906i and SH906iTV. These cover a broad range of market segments and form factors including high-end converged devices, smartphones and mid-range mobile phones and half are GPS enabled. The majority of these new phones are based on Symbian OS v9, including some of which are based on Symbian's latest product offering, Symbian OS v9.3, and are currently shipping in Japan and Europe.
Symbian Ready
In May 2008, Symbian launched the Symbian Ready technology validation program, designed to offer customers direct access to pre-validated ecosystem solutions. In addition to helping ecosystem partners make the most of Symbian OS technologies by developing in the most efficient way, Symbian Ready also offers ecosystem partners the opportunity to showcase their solutions to handset manufacturers and network operators through a variety of co-marketing initiatives such as the Symbian Ready Directory and promotion on Symbian Developer Network.
Symbian Ready is an umbrella program, comprising two strands at launch - Symbian Ready AUTO and Symbian Ready VERO. In Q2 2008, 6 ecosystem companies are undergoing validation through the Symbian Ready program, including, for Symbian Ready VERO, three of the top four NAND vendors are either validated for Symbian OS or engaged in validation.
Symbian Partner Network
Symbian launched its new partner program, the Symbian Partner Network (SPN). This new program replaces the Platinum Program and focuses on harnessing innovation by further strengthening the ecosystem, helping its members and customers to build compelling devices and solutions more quickly and at a lower cost. Key benefits to the SPN include enhanced marketing and business development opportunities as well as improved access to online developer support resources, including technology roadmaps and other documentation. Membership is now available at a new competitive annual membership fee of US$1,500.
Symbian Partner Network, along with other market leaders and visionaries including customers, media and analysts, will come together to help shape the future of mobile at the annual Smartphone Show [1] in London, UK on 21st - 22nd October.
Symbian Limited remains focused on further strengthening the development and adoption of its open mobile platform with a vision of becoming the most widely used software platform on the planet. On 24th June, Nokia announced its intent to acquire the remaining Symbian shares that it didn't already own and simultaneously announced, with other industry leaders, plans to establish the Symbian Foundation - major steps that follow our vision and mark the next stage in the evolution of Symbian OS.
Through the Symbian Foundation, mobile leaders plan to unify the Symbian software platform with user interface software and provide this new platform under a royalty-free license. The initiative is supported by all our major shareholders and Symbian management. Membership of this non-profit foundation will be open to all organizations and plans for the foundation have already received wide support from many industry leaders, with initial board members including five leading handset manufacturers (LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson), leading operators (AT&T, NTT DOCOMO and Vodafone) and hardware manufacturers (STMicroelectronics and TI).
Nigel Clifford continued, "Ten years ago, Symbian was established by far sighted players to offer an advanced open operating system and software skills to the whole mobile industry. Our vision is for Symbian OS to become the most widely used software platform on the planet and indeed today it leads its market by any measure. The Symbian Foundation is a bold new step to achieve that vision by embracing a complete and proven platform, offered in an open and royalty-free way, designed to stimulate innovation which is at the heart of everything we do.
The mobile industry coming together to create the Symbian Foundation will mark the biggest contribution to an open community we believe has ever been made, with software assets of around 40 million lines of code being contributed."
"For the past ten years, helping our customers succeed has been our number one priority. We believe we have remained number one because we're the only company in our industry that is built from the ground up to create what might be described as a ‘pure, open mobile OS' for the good of the industry in consultation with our partners and licensees.
Achieving 225.9 million devices is tremendous success but we know that others are targeting this market. However, we believe that the combination of Symbian's unrivalled product offering, development roadmap, ecosystem and experience in the open mobile market now supplemented with the future support of the Symbian Foundation, Symbian OS should continue to lead the market. We're pleased with our progress and very excited about pioneering the next wave of mobile innovation."
- End -
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, 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. From v9.0 onwards after 1 July 2006, licensees can choose a pricing model based on either (a) a fraction of the trade price of devices shipping; or (b) an annual volume ratchet pricing structure.
Royalty Gross Profit - Symbian in-sources certain technologies when either:
i) there is already an appropriate industry standard developed by another party; or
ii) technology can be more efficiently provided by an outside supplier (e.g. WAP / web browsers; personal computer connectivity) and, in both cases, where Symbian considers that such technologies should form part of Symbian OS to satisfy market and licensees' requirements.
Consulting Revenue - Symbian undertakes consultancy activities to assist its licensees to implement Symbian OS in new handsets. Symbian prices such services to cover direct costs as such activities are primarily in support of licensees' adoption of Symbian OS. The level of consulting revenue will fluctuate depending upon: (a) the volume of new engagements with licensees; (b) the ability of licensees to develop new Symbian OS phones without the assistance of Symbian; and (c) the ability of Symbian Competence Centers to provide support for licensee product development.
Phone models - Symbian defines phone models on the basis that the following conditions are satisfied:
- the device is manufactured in commercial quantities; and
- the device is available in retail channels; and
- the device has a unique model identifier and/or is a publicly announced variant or derivative: US with 850 MHz radio, China, Japan or CDMA. (Up to two variants or derivatives from the following segments: US, China, Japan, CDMA; public announcement on the part of the licensee must be fully auditable through licensee's marketing collateral or web content)
Partnering & Other Revenue - Symbian derives a further revenue stream from training activities, partner activities (including the Symbian Partner Program) and trade shows (including the Symbian Smartphone Show held in October each year). These activities are designed to promote Symbian OS and are therefore not net profit earning for Symbian.
Models in development - Models in development are defined by Symbian as phones prior to launch where licensees a) have committed a minimum development team; and b) have a visible plan to launch; and c) have a minimum expected lifetime shipment for the phone. The determination of phones in development is at the discretion of Symbian.
With more and more Symbian models being launched by licensees, such licensees are becoming experienced in developing new Symbian models with only limited or no direct Symbian assistance. As a result, Symbian is not always aware of new models prior to their market launch. Symbian is keen to ensure that licensees are able to launch new models more quickly and easily and encourages licensees to build up appropriate internal capabilities and experience in developing with Symbian OS. Therefore, the number of new models in development known to Symbian at the reporting date is becoming a less accurate forward-looking indicator of new Symbian licensee models coming to market.
Number of Symbian OS Applications - Symbian tracks the number of commercially available Symbian OS applications. This is done through monitoring 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 by an individual alone.
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, nor have been explicitly validated as running on, Symbian OS phones. It is therefore likely that there are many additional Java MIDlet applications that will run on Symbian OS phones.
Symbian Foundation - On 24th June 2008, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced their intent to unite Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone they plan to establish the Symbian Foundation to extend the appeal of this unified software platform. Membership of this non-profit Foundation will be open to all organizations. This initiative is supported by current Symbian shareholders and management of Symbian Limited, who have been actively involved in its development. Plans for the Foundation have already received wide support from other industry leaders.
To enable the Foundation, Nokia announced plans to acquire the remaining shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own and then contribute the Symbian and S60 software to the Foundation on the same day. Sony Ericsson and Motorola today announced their intention to contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO has also indicated its willingness to contribute its MOAP(S) assets. From these contributions, the Foundation will provide a unified platform with common UI framework. A full platform will be available for all Foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the Foundation's first day of operations. The Foundation plans to make available a complete mobile software platform in open source over the next two years and intends to be released under Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0. For more information, please visit www.symbianfoundation.org [2].
Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for mobile phones.
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 Q2 2008, 19.6 million Symbian mobile phones were sold worldwide to over 250 major network operators, bringing the total number of units shipped up to 30 June 2008 to 226 million.
Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom, with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Asia (India, P.R. China, and Korea) and Japan. For more information, please visit www.symbian.com [3].
Links:
[1] http://www.smartphoneshow.com/
[2] http://www.symbianfoundation.org/
[3] http://www.symbian.com/