Fujitsu and Sharp launch 11 Symbian smartphones

Japanese companies Fujitsu Ltd and Sharp Corp announced 11 new smartphone models running Symbian software this week. While Symbian is the largest smartphone operating system, on more than 400 million such phones since 2000 it’s been declining since Apple unveiled its iPhone in 2007. Thus, Japan remains the only market where other manufacturers than Nokia are still taking it on. Samsung and Sony Ericsson earlier discarded the platform.

Ben Wood, research director at British consultancy CCS Insight, said Japanese manufacturers had effectively created their own version of Symbian and were likely to continue using it despite Nokia taking control of it.

"On this basis, it is likely they will continue to forge their own path. However, this approach does not deliver the economies of scale Nokia envisaged at the inception of the Symbian Foundation," Wood said.

Even though Nokia in fact receives no direct benefit from other makers using the platform, its own portfolio is helped by the breadth of independent software developed for use on the phone, which in turn is increased by a bigger user base.