BANGALORE: Symbian Inc., operating system provider for mobile phones is now setting its sights beyond its traditional realm of high-end smart phones.
The company, which enjoys an enviable 70-80 per cent share of the market, is changing tacks to target the mid-range “feature-phone market”.
Feature phones are phones, which lack the typical bells and whistles associated with smart phones, but instead carry specific features such as MMS, digital music, games and camera features.
Speaking to CyberMedia News, Nigel Clifford, CEO, Symbian Inc., shared details of the company's new focus.
“We have principally been in the high-end smart phone market and have been growing 100 per cent for the last four years. However, the feature phone market is growing at 2-4 times the rate of the smart phone market. So this is the natural logical step for us to take.”
He touched on current mobile trends that prove his point. “While a lot of devices are converging on to the mobile device, there is also a lot of segmentation going on in the cell phone market. Handset manufacturers are looking to provide specific phones for the music segment, senior citizens to high end applications like phone wallets, phones that can be used as boarding passes and phones with simple menus in Japan.”
Symbian made the first step in its mid-range plan in February this year, by slashing the licensing rates for its customers (mobile handset manufacturers) so that they could target lower cost device market segments and drive higher volumes of Symbian OS phones.
“The feedback from analysts and hand-set manufacturers has been very positive,” said Clifford.
Another move was to team up with Nokia and Freescale to build a 3G-reference design platform for the mid-tier market. Despite the strong thrust on mid-tier, Clifford hastens to add that the company would not shift from its primary focus-smart phone segment.
Symbian is also banking on its Indian development center for software development. The company recently opened a new facility, which houses 230 employees in Bangalore. This number is expected to touch 350 soon. Three years ago, the company partnered with MphasiS to set up an offshore development center in Bangalore. Clifford said that the relationship with MphasiS would continue.
Besides Bangalore, the company has development centers in Cambridge and London in the UK.
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