Symbian opens office in China – world’s largest mobile market

Symbian committed to long-term investment in China

Beijing, China - January 16 2007 - At an official ceremony in Beijing, Symbian Limited today announced an office opening in China to support the growing business development and market operations of its licensees and ecosystem partners in the region. Symbian develops and licenses Symbian OS™, the market-leading open operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones known as smartphones to the world’s leading handset manufacturers.

The announcement today marks a significant milestone for Symbian in its long-term commitment to the region. With local presence and additional marketing focus in China, Symbian’s new office will further stimulate the smartphone market through:* contribution to academia and university programmes within the technology sector as part of the Symbian Academy, available in universities globally. In addition, Symbian will localise the industry-supported Accredited Symbian Developer exam to specific Chinese universities
* training and support for the growing Symbian developer community in China, including provision of Chinese language developer materials and local developer events in collaboration with Symbian licensees, to increase the availability of China-specific Symbian applications
* localisation of Symbian Signed in China to set higher standards in application development and deployment.

Symbian
Presenting to customers, local partners, members of the Chinese media and industry analysts at the ceremony, Nigel Clifford, chief executive officer of Symbian, said “China is a very important market for Symbian with 10 per cent of Symbian smartphones currently shipping in this market and 12.5 per cent of Symbian applications created in China. As most of our customers have bases in China, we hope that the establishment of our new office will support their growth and the development of the Chinese mobile market in general and also fuel local employment and academic opportunities. We are committed to a long-term investment in China�.

According to the Q3 2006 Canalys report[1], the smartphone market in China, boosted by the development of wireless data services, is set to grow substantially, with forecast shipments projected to reach 29 million units by 2009. Symbian is the market-leading OS for smartphones in China and sales grew more than 126% from Q3 05 to Q3 06.

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Notes to editors
About Symbian

Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones known as smartphones.

Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world’s leading handset manufacturers and has built close co-operative business relationships with leading companies across the mobile industry. During Q3 2006, 13 million Symbian smartphones were sold worldwide to over 250 major network operators. To date, more than 100 million Symbian smartphones have shipped cumulatively.

Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom, with offices in the United States, Europe (England and Sweden (UIQ Technology AB)), Israel and Asia (India, P.R. China, Korea and Japan).

www.symbian.com

Source: Symbian