3GSM: Samsung joins rivals with 5% of Symbian

By Peter Clarke, SBN
iApplianceWeb
(02/18/03, 01:40:36 PM EDT)

CANNES, France --- Mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd and Symbian Ltd., which writes operating system software to go in mobile phones, announced at the 3GSM World Congress here that Samsung is to become a Symbian shareholder, thereby diluting the other shareholders holdings by one part in twenty.

Symbian was formed by Psion plc and is co-owned by most of the major mobile communications companies. Shareholders in Symbian include Ericsson, Motorola Inc., Nokia Oy, Psion plc and Siemens AG. The move was not unexpected as Samsung signed a license for the Symbian-based Nokia Series 60 mobile handset 'platform' in 2002 but did not become a shareholder at that time.

The holdings of Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson are to move down from 20% each to 19%. Samsung, which is buying its 5% stake in Symbian for £17 million (about $27.2 million), overtakes Siemens, which is to hold a 4.8% after the transaction completes. Psion's 26.5% holding moves down to 25.3%.

As a Symbian shareholder, Samsung will be represented at Symbian's supervisory board and will contribute its experience and expertise to the future technical and strategic development of Symbian OS, the companies said.

“With 22 Symbian OS products currently in development by 8 licensees, we look forward to the widespread market introduction of Symbian OS devices during the coming year,” said David Levin, chief executive officer of Symbian, in a statement..

“We are delighted to be a Symbian shareholder and look forward to contributing Samsung's experience and expertise to the continued development of Symbian OS as the global open standard for smartphones,” said " said Sang-Jin Park, senior vice president and general manager of mobile communication division at Samsung Electronics.

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