Nokia to acquire Symbian

ESPOO, FINLAND: Nokia announced it has launched a cash offer to acquire all of the shares of Symbian Ltd that Nokia does not already own, at a price of EUR 3.647 per share. The net cash outlay from Nokia to purchase the approximately 52 percent of Symbian shares it does not already own will be approximately EUR 264 million.

Nokia has received irrevocable undertakings from Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd and Siemens International Holding BV to accept the offer, representing approximately 91 percent of the Symbian shares subject to the offer. Nokia also expects Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd to accept the offer.

The acquisition is a fundamental step in the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, announced by Nokia, together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

"This is a significant milestone in our software strategy" said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia. "Symbian is already the leading open platform for mobile devices. Through this acquisition and the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, it will undisputedly be the most attractive platform for mobile innovation. This will drive the development of new and compelling, web-enabled applications to delight a new generation of consumers."

"The wide support for this initiative, uniting the industry around the Symbian platform, reflects the strong gravitational pull it has for application developers and other ecosystem players. We will drive efficient, open innovation by unifying the platform and simplifying the software supply chain, leveraging our experience from mobile devices. Nokia is strongly positioned to realize the benefits of open innovation, as well as accelerating time to market, enabling us to meet and exceed consumer expectations for leading converged devices and experiences", Kallasvuo added.

Mobile devices based on Symbian OS account for 60 percent of the converged mobile device segment. Symbian OS represented approximately 7 percent of all mobile device sales in 2007, up from 5 percent in 2006. To date, more than 200 million Symbian OS based phones have been shipped, over 235 models, from eight vendors and on more than 250 mobile networks around the world. Over 4 million developers are engaged in producing applications for Symbian devices.

Nokia expects the acquisition to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2008 and is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. On a reported basis, Nokia expects the transaction to be dilutive in 2009, approximately breakeven in 2010, and accretive in 2011. On a cash basis, Nokia expects the transaction to be dilutive in 2009 and accretive in 2010 and 2011. After the closing, all Symbian employees will become Nokia employees.