Last week’s 3GSM extravaganza in Barcelona saw the publication of the latest batch of statistics from Smartphone operating system (OS) company Symbian Ltd. As has become customary in recent years, the news (and, for once, the business) was good.

Full year 2005 shipments of Symbian-powered phones totalled 33.9mn, up from 14.4mn in 2004 and a year-on-year growth of 136%. This was the fourth consecutive year in which Symbian OS phone shipments have grown by more than 100%. A statement from the company said that during 2005 Symbian’s revenues grew to £114.8mn, an increase of 73% on 2004. Cumulative shipments of Symbian OS phones since Symbian’s formation reached 58.8m phones at the end of December 2005. At year end 60 Smartphone models from 10 Symbian OS licensees were shipping to more than 250 network operators around the world, of which 36 models commenced shipping in 2005. The company added that, of the 60 phones models shipping, 22 were shipping to network operators in Japan and across Europe for use on W-CDMA (3G) networks. Symbian also estimated that 35% of global 3G phone shipments in 2005 were based on Symbian OS.

“In 2005, after four consecutive years of over 100% year on year growth of Symbian OS phone shipments, Symbian has achieved break-even for the first time,” commented Symbian ceo Nigel Clifford. “This milestone further demonstrates Symbian’s leadership in the rapid growth of the open phone market and commitment to driving new commercial opportunities for handset manufacturers, network operators and partners in the consumer and enterprise space.”

With a share of the 2005 Smartphone OS market estimated by The Diffusion Group (TDG) at 51.4% and its tie-in with Nokia, Symbian looks to be sitting pretty. The company is also trying new strategies to drive into mass markets. Earlier this month, for example, it announced a new alternative to its software licence pricing model in order to encourage its licensees to accelerate development of Symbian OS phones. “The revised licensing model is expected to drive higher volumes by enabling licensees to target lower cost phone market segments,” said Clifford.

But at my back I always hear…
Notwithstanding its present day dominance, could Symbian be overtaken by rival OSs in the foreseeable term?

It can and it will, according to a new TDG research report ‘Advanced Mobile Operating Systems: Analysis & Forecasts’. This analysis suggests that Symbian's market share of advanced mobile OSs will decline to approximately 22.1% by 2010, placing it third behind both Windows (28.7%) and Linux (26.6%). "Symbian will maintain leading share through 2009, but 2007 will see the beginning of Symbian's decline in share as the combined market penetration of Windows, Linux, and native Java begin to erode developer and vendor support for Symbian," reasoned Lee Allen, report author and lead mobile analyst with TDG.

According to TDG, with a 23% share of the market, Symbian’s current nearest mobile phone OS rival is the open source Linux. TDG says that Linux enjoyed a sizeable boost in shipments during the second half of 2005, something that very few forecasters were expecting but a trend which TDG believes will continue as the Palm OS evolves to a software layer running on top of Linux.

Linux has a lot of things going for it. Lower cost than some other OSs may one, although this is routinely rejected by Microsoft. Developer camaraderie (ie we are not Microsoft) may be another. China , which seems to be somewhere near the front of Linux handset commercialisation and demand, may be a third. As noted by the TDG report: “The main drivers of growth for advanced mobile operating systems will be the emergence of the Chinese market and the worldwide migration of users to more powerful devices as more sophisticated applications and seamless mobility are offered by operators.”

Linux is additionally attracting the support of vendors such as Motorola, Panasonic, Samsung and ZTE. And, last week, France Telecom announced a new operator-driven initiative called the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum. The stated objective of LiPS is to enable better communication and cooperation between the open source and proprietary worlds to face common challenges in telephony terminals. LiPS is also claimed to provide a great opportunity for the industry to make innovative telephony terminal devices with lower costs and fewer constraints. The founding members of LiPS Forum include Cellon, Esmertec , France Telecom, FSM Labs, Huawei, Jaluna, MIZI Research, Open Plug and PalmSource.

Elephant in the corner
However, according to TDG the one to watch is Microsoft, predicted to expand its market share from 17% at present to 28.7% by 2010.

The Redmond colossus used the Barcelona event to announce its own batch of mobile OS numbers. In a congress keynote speech, company ceo Steve Ballmer charted the progress of Windows mobile phones over the last 36 months with a flurry of statistics reminiscent of those released by Symbian.

“In 2002, just three years ago, we had one device offered by one operator in one country; an inauspicious start perhaps. We sit here just over three years later; we are in market with over 102 operators, there are over 100 different models of Windows Mobile phones in the marketplace today, which is really fantastic. Those devices are available in 55 countries and come from over 47 different hardware manufacturers” pointed out Ballmer.

“We've had over 18,000 applications developed for the Windows Mobile platform. We have over 13 million developers who have gone and gotten the development tools to build Windows Mobile applications,” he continued.

Like Symbian, Microsoft is mounting initiatives to expand the commitment of its partner community. “This year, we're really ramping up our energy. You'll see us launch a new advertising campaign all behind Windows Mobile,” stated Ballmer. “You'll see us turn to our 250,000 business partners around the globe and get them ginned up to really move forward with Windows Mobile based solutions, which is an important step forward.”

And, like Symbian, Microsoft’s mobile and embedded devices division has recently reached a financial milestone, reporting its first quarterly profit on revenues that exceededUS$100mn for the first time.
John Williamson