The manufacturer of the kernel that powers S60 and UIQ has just announced its sales figures for Q2 2008. Reprinting the full press release is pointless as it can be found right here…stay tuned for a look at the highlights!
First of all: the sheer variety of Symbian powered phones is amazing. The company currently states that 159 different units are currently available “for sale”(up from 122 last year), with 92 phones being under development currently (up from 62).
Developers will be unhappy to hear that 9,834 third-party Symbian applications are now commercially available, a 25% increase on 30 June 2007 (7,888 applications). While this will probably make individual houses unhappy, it is a strong testament to the growing S60 software economy (that still lacks a proper app store).
Finally, a very interesting comment from Symbian’s CEO Nagel Clifford:
“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.
P.S. The following definitions could be useful when it comes to making sense of the figures above:
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.
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