Symbian sells 'one phone per second'

Symbian has unveiled its latest set of quarterly results and revealed it is now selling more than one phone every second, or 33 million handsets per year – up from one million in a year during 2002.

Symbian announced today that the fourth quarter of 2005 has seen its OS shipped on 10.9 million devices, bringing the year's total to more than 33 million phones – a year-on-year growth of 136 per cent.

With 60 million phones shipped cumulatively, the software company said it now has between 60 and 70 per cent of the smart phone market.

Symbian also revealed its revenue for the quarter reached £33.6m and the smart phone maker said it reached profitability for the first time in 2005.

Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford reiterated the company's intention to make its mark in the mass market. "We want to take our apps and software into what is currently called the feature phone market," he told delegates at the 3GSM Congress in Barcelona.

The company recently announced a change to its licensing structure, cutting initial costs in return for high volume sales.

However, Clifford said the company was not forgetting its smart phone roots. "We are not saying 'smart phones are done, we're off to do something else'," he added.