Nokia announced today that it has started the process of enabling the transfer of Psion's shares in the Symbian embedded operating system to Nokia. Upon completion of the transaction, Nokia estimates that its share in Symbian will increase to approximately 63.3% from the current 32.2%. Nokia was the #1 worldwide supplier of mobile handsets in 2003 at 33.6% market share, with Motorola holding the #2 spot at 14.1%, according to market analyst IDC.

According to Nokia, Symbian, co-owned by a group of mobile industry players, will continue to pursue its business licensing the Symbian operating system.

“As a founder and shareholder, Nokia is determined to make further investment to support Symbian's long-term success in the increasingly competitive wireless OS market,” Nokia said in a statement. “The decision to acquire Psion's shares in Symbian is based on Nokia's confidence in the Symbian OS as a core platform technology for advanced mobile devices.”

According to Nokia, the value of the transaction will derive from two parts. A fixed portion of £93.5 million (137.1 MEUR), and a variable payment of £0.84 (1.23 EUR) from Nokia to Psion for each Symbian OS device sold during 2004 and 2005.

“With its advanced and robust operating system, strong customer base and good relationships with operators, Symbian has successfully fulfilled the demanding technical requirements of mobile devices and the diverse needs of the market,” commented Pertti Korhonen, Chief Technology Officer, Nokia. “It is vital to sustain Symbian's long-term market success in order to enable healthy competition in the OS market and to stimulate innovation throughout the value chain.”

“The Symbian OS has proven its flexibility as an OS platform capable of supporting the demanding needs of the industry,” Korhonen continued. “Good examples include the UIQ software platform, the Series 60 Platform, the FOMA UI (user interface) and a number of vendor specific implementations — all running on top of the Symbian platform. This flexibility has resulted in a rich variety of advanced mobile devices enabling both handset manufacturers and operators to differentiate their offerings,” he continued.

In conjunction with Nokia's announcement today, Psion has announced its decision to sell its stake in Symbian to Nokia and to focus on developing Psion Teklogix, its core business. The completion of the transaction is expected to take place within the coming months.

Earlier this year, Motorola announced that it was selling its 19% share of Symbian. This year, Motorola, a former Symbian investor, announced plans to develop new mobile phone products based on both the embedded Linux and Microsoft Windows Mobile for Smartphone operating systems.

 
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