26 November 2008

Nokia Says Symbian Deal
Is On Track To Be Closed This Year

The world's largest cell phone maker, Nokia, said on Tuesday its 264 million euro ($339.9 million) acquisition of British software firm Symbian was on track to be closed this year.

Back in June, Nokia announced it would buy out the shares of the other shareholders for a total of $410 million and then make the Symbian royalty-free to other foundation members in response to Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry, and newcomers such as Google's Android platform. Nokia also said that they expect the deal will get regulator approval by the end of this year!

"The Symbian deal is on track," Mary McDowell, Nokia's chief development officer, told Reuters on the sidelines to Business Week's European Leadership Forum in London.

McDowell said Nokia hopes its push into Internet services will also boost sales of its smartphones, which lead the industry with about 40 percent market share but have lost ground to Apple and RIM in the last few quarters.

"Clearly Internet services represent a revenue growth opportunity, (but it is) also a basis of competition in high-end devices," she told Reuters.

Handset makers had previously been relatively unscathed by the global economic crisis this year, but successive warnings from Nokia, Qualcomm and Intel signaled a rapid deterioration of consumer electronics demand.

"Even in areas where there is consumer demand, credit conditions are causing problems," McDowell told the forum, echoing Nokia's comments in a Nov 14 warning.

Nokia has said it sees the Symbian Foundation as a faster way to bring new products to the markets. Foundation members also avoid having to pay fees to outside software developers. Nokia expects to release the first unified Symbian Foundation software next year and introduce a completely new platform by June 2010.