Symbian to Lead Smartphone Boom

The mobile phone industry will sell 150 million smartphones in 2008, 15 times this year’s sales, with the Symbian OS leading the smartphone operating system market, according to a report published this week by ABI Research. The report projects strong growth for high-end mobile phones, with Microsoft’s market share trailing behind Symbian, and Linux bringing up the rear.

The firm projects that the Symbian OS, which grew out of the EPOC operating system originally used on Psion handheld computers, will win the most smartphone market share by 2008, largely because of wide support by mobile phone makers. Most major handset makers, including Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson, have licensed the Symbian OS and also own stakes in the company.

The Symbian OS’ biggest appeal for handset makers and telcos such as NTT DoCoMo is the ability to customise the software’s functionality and appearance, ABI said. “With increasing competition and high churn rates, operators have felt the need to differentiate their products,” said ABI analyst Kenil Vora, in a statement. Continue >>