Nigel Clifford's keynote at Symbian Smartphone Show

At the Symbian Smartphone Show, Symbian’s CEO Nigel Clifford today announced that the smartphone is poised to change the way people live in ways as profound as those triggered by the Internet and PC in the 1990s.

During his keynote at The Symbian Smartphone Show at ExCel in London, Clifford stated that a smartphone revolution is well underway and among his forecasts were that:

• the developing world will account for 50% of smartphone sales within five years
• a “smartphone generation” is occurring and the demands of the youth market will drive innovation and smartphone use
• mobile phone access will be the next significant Internet phenomenon

Arguing that the next big challenge for the mobile phone industry is to make smartphones more accessible to many more people, Clifford said the smartphone already combined over 20 standalone devices and gave users instant and constant access to the world’s sources of information and entertainment. He stated that smartphones, while only 4% of the worldwide mobile market today, are a broadening category, crossing markets and segments and, according to Gartner, will reach 200 million units a year by 2008.

Innovation is already encouraging people to use smartphones in ways that were inconceivable until recently. For example, Symbian OS is being used in phones that incorporate:

• calorie counters and pedometers, for sports categories
• panic alarms and exercise monitors, for devices aimed at the elderly
• Biometrics, ID and face recognition
• electronic wallets
• 6 GB of music - the equivalent of leading single purpose MP3 players
• 5 megapixel cameras, waterproof cameras
• “place-shifting” capability to access remote content from your home or office PC
• personal-video-recording capability
• multiplayer 3D games
• Voice over IP

Clifford further argued that the cost of developing new smartphones would fall as the industry benefits from greater economies of scale. Moore’s Law, more robust technology, and more compelling content have all contributed to bring the mobile phone industry to a “tipping point” where smartphones enter higher volume use.

Symbian, in conjunction with user interface software partners S60, UIQ, and MOAP, is assisting the industry in the development of mobile phone “platforms”, from which various models can be developed, each styled to appeal to a segment of the market but with much of the software and componentry in common to keep costs low.

This “develop once, use often” mantra was behind the decisions at NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM), Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), and Orange to make software platform selections involving Symbian OS - operators with a combined customer base of 310 million users. NTT DoCoMo has shipped 36 Symbian smartphones in 36 months with several Symbian OS licensees. Reduction in time-to-market of new models demonstrated that the operator has been able to increase the flow of product innovations and new features.

Clifford argued that two fundamental trends would shape the mobile industry in future.

First, the developing world would use smartphones much more than generally anticipated. Clifford stated that mobile phones present the developing world with a huge opportunity to fast-forward into the information era (a process known as economic ‘leapfrogging’). So, smartphones may have their highest penetration rates in the most saturated and developed markets of the EMEA region and Japan, but the highest growth rates were in developing markets.

He forecasts that smartphones - not basic voice-only phones - would be in widespread use in countries such as India because phones were:

• cheaper than PCs
• greater in number (five times more of them)
• growing at ten times the speed
• capable of a rich mobile Internet experience

Symbian was not alone in finding that the developing world is turning to mobile for Internet access. Africa accounts for 80% of the BBC WAP site hits from outside the UK. The smartphone was bringing information to the eyes and ears of many people.

Second, young people are starting to view smartphones as essential to their lifestyle. They would be brutal in deciding whether a device was right for them, as Symbian knows from its experience in the fashion-conscious market of Japan. These youngsters represent a massive opportunity with more than $1 trillion in disposable income. Two-thirds of the young people who do not yet own a phone are in China and India.

Smartphones are already central to the lifestyle of many people. Under discussion at the Show were applications for the delivery of:

• music: Symbian smartphones outsold the iPodTM by 45% in H1 2006. Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) is using its Walkman brand for the forthcoming W950i Walkman, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has launched a music content business fronted by David Bowie and a 8GB handset (the Nokia N91) offering 6,000 tracks, newly announced Symbian smartphones in Japan by NTT DoCoMo have FM transmitters for streaming music, up to 45h playback time and even include the Napster-to-go service
• video and TV: Launched at the Symbian Smartphone Show, Sling Media delivers personal TV home viewing to Symbian smartphones, while newly announced in Japan, NTT DoCoMo phones based on Symbian OS have digital TV reception, can record to memory card, and boast a 3″ TFT screen - the largest screen on a mobile phone in Japan
• enterprise / email: Symbian expects huge growth in mobile e-mail accounts by 2010 and Symbian smartphones support all leading mobile email solutions in the market including: Seven, Good, iAnywhere, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Connect, Visto, and ActiveSync for Microsoft Exchange, while 11 Symbian smartphones in the market today are WiFi enabled
• gaming: Symbian OS enables richer, graphically superior, high-performance premium games that can take advantage of the latest mobile hardware acceleration technologies. This year has seen the launch of Symbian smartphones, such as the Sony Ericsson P990 and the Nokia N93, which incorporate 3D hardware acceleration. Game developers can use open industry standards, such as OpenGL ES, to deliver cutting-edge 3D graphics hardware accelerated action.
• social media: Symbian smartphones are the perfect data acquisition device and enable immediate, effortless sharing of content with solutions such as Shozu from Cognima (users average 20 picture/video uploads per month) and Peerbox from Nareos (peer-to-peer legal file sharing, search, and on-air song recognition).