Symbian’s latest shipment figures, released this week, show that 165 million Symbian devices have now been shipped. The forth quarter and the Christmas period have traditionally given a boost to the overall shipment figures, so could we see 200 million devices shipped by the end of 2007?
Statistically the odds are probably against achieving this milestone in 2007. A figure close to 25 million devices shipped in the final quarter seems more realistic. The past two years have seen shipment increases Q3 to Q4 running at about double the Q2 to Q3 increase. However, this year the Q2 to Q3 increase was reduced by significant growth in the second quarter. Overall a 20% increased in final quarter shipments looks likely, particularly given the presence of new Samsung devices in the market and the Sony Ericsson W960 staring to ship. This would see around 25 million devices shipped in the last quarter, bringing the total shipments at the end of 2007 to around the 190 million mark.
On that basis to 200 million mark will come sometime in February 2008, with the 300 million mark looking achievable before the end of 2008. In fact it would not be unrealistic to expect 100 million Symbian devices to be shipped in 2008.
However will 2008 be the beginning of the end to the golden weather?
To date Symbian has had limited competition. Microsoft has failed to make significant headway with Windows Mobile, Palm has flagged, and while RIM has been plugging away it remains relatively niche.
Microsoft is certainly not giving up and RIM has show signs of moving to a more consumer orientated model in the hope of boosting sales. The appearance of the iPhone and announcement of the Open Mobile Alliance seems to offer more competition. However, Apple has always taken a closed approach to its OS – one of the most significant reasons Apple failed to take a larger share of the PC market was its refusal to license to other hardware manufacturers – the same attitude is likely to see the iPhone achieve good but ultimately limited sales.
Although the Open Mobile Alliance is an interesting development overall Linux is still having problems getting to volumes. I remember ACCESS being very bullish about their Linux OS at last year’s Orange Partner Camp, but as yet no devices have appeared. The problems for Linux are three fold. First its not free, the development costs are really no different from those for any other existing OS; there is a shortage of embedded Linux engineers, Symbian has had close on 10 years to build a work force of knowledgeable engineers; and design by committee rarely works well.
In addition to this, Symbian will become a platform of Linux developers. P.I.P.S. and Open C have already taken a step in that direction. As processor and memory capacities on Symbian devices increase, expanded support for standard desktop API will follow. The result being that Linux developers will have their greatest opportunity on Symbian OS.
The likelihood that Symbian will be pressured by serious competition in 2008 is minimal. That day will come, most probably from Linux, and in many ways that is a good thing. The smartphone market will be huge, certainly over 1 billion handsets annually, and there will be room for several big players. After all the last thing the smartphone market needs is a de-facto monopoly OS: We have that in the PC market and look where that has got us.
