Mobile industry backs Symbian for mobile OS leadership
Symbian Press Release 07/07/04
Symbian Software Limited announces that its shareholders have concluded an agreement regarding Symbian’s future funding, governance and equity structure.
Symbian’s continuing shareholders reiterate their continued full support for Symbian’s strategy and objectives as an independent, for-profit company, and have provided significant further investment to ensure the long-term success of Symbian OS as the industry’s chosen technology platform for mass market, advanced phones for 2.5 and 3G networks. Shareholders have participated in a rights issue to raise £50m in additional funding for Symbian. Nokia, Panasonic, Siemens and Sony Ericsson have also agreed to participate in the pre-emption process for the purchase of Psion’s equity stake in Symbian. The process is expected to complete on 12th July 2004. In addition, Shareholders have jointly agreed to appoint an independent, non-executive Chairman to the Symbian Board.
Highlights
• £50m rights issue to accelerate investment in Symbian OS development to facilitate further adoption of Symbian OS as a platform for lower cost, mass market advanced phones.
• Symbian’s costbase will expand from c.£70m to c.£100m per annum, with permanent employee & contractor headcount rising from c.900 to c.1,200.
• Symbian's continuing shareholders will appoint an independent, non-executive Chairman to the Board. The selection process is under way and is anticipated to be completed during the latter half of the year.
• The pre-emption process to determine allocation of Psion’s 31.1% equity stake amongst Shareholders has been completed; the new shareholding structure will be as detailed in the table below.
• In subscribing to the rights issue and in purchasing Psion’s equity, Shareholders will invest a total of £187.7m in their shareholdings in Symbian.
• Shareholder and non-shareholder Symbian OS licensees continue to expand their use of Symbian OS as a platform for advanced phones. At 30th June 2004, 34 phones and variants based on Symbian OS were being readied for market by 10 licensees. (Q2 2003 - 26 phones, 9 licensees) (see Notes to Editors for definitions).
Symbian's new shareholding structure after completion of the equity sale and rights issue will be as follows:
|
Prev
% equity
|
New
% equity |
|
| Ericsson |
17.5
|
15.6 |
| Sony Ericsson | 1.5
|
13.1 |
| Nokia |
32.2
|
47.9 |
| Panasonic |
7.9
|
10.5 |
| Psion |
31.1
|
0.0 |
| Samsung |
5.0
|
4.5 |
| Siemens |
4.8
|
8.4
|
| Total |
100.0
|
100.0
|
David Levin, CEO, Symbian said:
"Symbian and Symbian OS have today won massive endorsement from the leaders of the mobile industry. The agreement provides strong support for Symbian OS as the industry’s chosen platform for the mobile phones of the future. I am delighted with the Shareholders’ unanimous commitment to Symbian's future as an independent company. The additional investment will enable Symbian to accelerate Symbian OS development, in particular to support Symbian OS for lower cost, mass market, advanced phones for both 2.5G and 3G environments.
With 6.67m Symbian OS phones shipping in 2003 and 2.4m in the first quarter of 2004, and with 34 phones in development with 10 licensees, Symbian is the clear leader in the emerging smartphone market.
Symbian’s target is to take Symbian OS into lower cost, mass markets for advanced phones for 2.5G and particularly for the emerging 3G networks. Today’s agreement shows Symbian’s shareholders are backing Symbian to meet that challenge."
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