Symbian: 100 million smart phones shipped

One hundred million smart phones running the Symbian operating system have shipped to more than 250 network operators worldwide since the company's formation, according to Symbian's quarterly financial results.

The smart-phone top dog has seen its OS shipped on 13 million smart phones this quarter - a 52 per cent increase on the third quarter of last year.

The 100 million Symbian smart phones were shipped by 10 handset makers including Sony Ericsson, Samsung and BenQ.

Top 10 smart phones

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Despite these figures, Symbian CFO Thomas Chambers said smart phone penetration worldwide is relatively low and still has a way to go compared with the penetration of mobile handsets.

The mobile software company will now focus on creating a platform for cheap smart phone devices for developing markets such as India and China.

Symbian made changes to its licensing agreement in early 2006, offering low per-unit costs when licensees purchase a large number of licences.

Chambers said it was too early to confirm whether the new licensing agreement had been a success but added there were "no plans to change our licensing model in the short term".