Symbian Ltd. announced that Symbian OS shipped in over 10 million mobile phones in Japan up until the end of May 2006.
The very first Symbian OS phones shipped in Japan in 2003 from Fujitsu; the FOMA F2051 followed by the FOMA F2102. A total of 6 Symbian OS based models had been shipped in Japan from Fujitsu and Nokia in 2004, 14 models from Fujitsu, Nokia, Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Motorola in 2005, and to date 35 models from 6 handset vendors including Sony Ericsson have shipped in total.
Haruhiko Hisa, President, Symbian Co. Ltd said that this significant achievement was driven by the remarkable growth of the advanced 3G mobile phone market in Japan, NTT DoCoMo’s selection of Symbian OS as a common software development platform for its 3G FOMA network and the fact that Symbian OS, as an open mobile operating system, reduces time to market. “Symbian will continue to focus on enabling applications and services that meet the demands of mobile phone users by working together with network operators, handset manufacturers, and partners in Japan”, added Hisa.