Recent news from the handheld computer market shows that the gap between the Symbian model and Microsoft and others is getting wider and wider. Psion is the biggest shareholder in Symbian with around a 25% stake.

Psion shares of late have really shown strength and the following chart shows that very clearly.


Positive candidate (4 Jun 2003) [Auto] Help
Has risen 129% since the bottom on 1 Oct 2002 at 33.00. Is within a rising trend and continued advance within the current trend is indicated. On reactions back, there is support against the floor of the trend channel. It also gave positive signal from a inverse head and shoulders formation at the break up through the resistance at 66.26. Further rise to 123 or more is signaled. The stock has support at p 58.00. The average difference between the highest and lowest price of the month is 28%. G

Today FT

It's all music to ears at Symbian
By Chris Nuttall
Published: June 3 2003 23:14 | Last Updated: June 3 2003 23:14


Tuesday's encouraging sales figures from Carphone Warehouse for the latest camera phones and multimedia handsets were a feast for the eyes and music to the ears for Symbian, maker of the underlying operating system that powers most of the new "smartphones".


"We're introducing the eye to a device that was supposed to connect the ear and the mouth," says David Levin, Symbian's chief executive, borrowing from the London-based company's new catchphrase for its part in the development of the mobile phone.

It has been a long time coming. Symbian went through five versions of its operating system waiting for the products to appear that could use it.

Only now are smartphones appearing in abundance - increasing royalties for the company and moving it closer to break-even and an initial public offering planned "when market conditions are viable and there is sufficient visibility for the product in the marketplace", according to the software maker.

Symbian is part-owned by the world's biggest handset makers - Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung - but the largest stakeholder is Psion, the UK company that used to make handheld PCs, with 25 per cent.

Mr Levin, formerly chief executive at Psion, insists the Symbian operating system that grew out of its clam-shell handhelds is superior to his main rival Microsoft's attempts to develop its own operating system for smartphones.

"But they are going to keep investing, this is very much a marathon and we are only on lap five - this is our fifth year."

According to the data in so far, Symbian is already a clear leader. Nokia, the biggest handset maker with a 35 per cent global market share, expects to ship 10m phones this year using the Symbian operating system.

Forecasts from Nomura are more conservative: they expect a total of 10m phones with Symbian from all manufacturers, compared to just 1m Microsoft phones.

While Symbian postulates that royalties on 16m phone sales a year would push it to break-even, Nomura sees a 25m-30m figure as the volume needed to make Symbian a viable business, as fixed costs and research and development spending increase.

This is despite Symbian boasting it has managed to increase royalties per unit from $5 to over $7 at a time when analysts feared it would come under pricing pressure.

"There is an obvious conflict here for Symbian," says Nomura analyst Richard Windsor. "As soon as they raise their price, they will be making money out of their own shareholders."

Shareholders suffered net losses of 42m ($69m) in 2001 and 37m in the last calendar year, when revenues rose to 29.5m from 17.7m.

Symbian has benefited from Microsoft's problems. First the US company fell out with UK handset maker Sendo, which switched allegiance to Symbian. And last month the operator T-Mobile postponed the launch of a Microsoft smartphone, citing concerns about its quality.

"As the market stands, Symbian have completely stitched up the smartphone opportunity," says Ben Wood, mobile terminals analyst at Gartner.

"Microsoft had the ability to be disruptive, but its effort so far has been underwhelming. But Mr Levin would be ill-advised to underestimate them."

The Ovum consultancy predicts Symbian will still be well ahead in 2007, with shipments reaching nearly 100m - putting the company's system in around 14 per cent of all handsets made. By comparison, it forecasts a 3 per cent market share for Microsoft, with 22m units.

But perhaps the real challenge for Symbian is winning consumer acceptance in general for the new breed of smartphone.G

Another nice rise today and well on for the 123p price target.G

And Money AM mobile runs on Symbian too! (Sony Ericsson P800, Nokia 9210 and so on.)

MM