Symbian, the software house that is appearing in increasing numbers of cell phones says that shipments of its operating system in the first half of this year grew to 2.68 million units, up from the 230,000 shipped a year ago.

Symbian royalty revenues grew to US$16.3 million in the same period.

At the end of H1 2003, 26 phones and variants based on Symbian OS were under development by nine licensees. Phones under development include the BenQ P30, Samsung SGH-D700, Siemens SX-1, Nokia N-Gage and Nokia 6600

David Levin, Chief Executive Officer, Symbian Ltd said "Symbian made good progress in the first half of 2003 with 2.68m phones based on Symbian OS shipping to network operators worldwide.

This growth in sales of Symbian OS-based smartphones is encouraging although these sales are modest in relation to all overall phone sales. At the end of the first half of 2003, 10 Symbian OS-based phones and variants developed by 3 licensees were shipping in markets around the world. In addition, 26 phones and variants based on Symbian OS were under development by 9 licensees.

Symbian anticipates that most, but not all of these products, will come to market over the next eighteen months. Products which have been made public include the BenQ P30, Samsung SGH-D700, Siemens SX-1, Nokia N-Gage and Nokia 6600, with NTT DoCoMo's F2102V made by Fujitsu becoming available in Japan in July. In the second half of the year, Symbian looks forward to the launch of further phones based on Symbian OS.

Symbian's second half financial performance depends significantly upon sales of phones due to be launched during the latter part of the year."