The US is one of the last markets that Symbian devices have been sold into in any volume, mainly due to structural issues with the US mobile phone market, Symbian's relatively recent entry into the market, and the lack of a compelling reasons for US consumers to upgrade to more advanced 2.5G and 3G handsets. However despite a late start Symbian powered devices have made significant advances in the US market during 2003 according to IDC.

So what has been achieved and what are the long term prospects for Symbian in the US? SymbianOne recently took the opportunity to discuss this with David Linsalata, Associate Analyst with IDC, Mobile Devices in Boston.

David says IDC estimates that 775,000 units of Symbian OS based devices were shipped into the US market in 2003, with over 90% of these coming from Nokia and the remainder, obviously, from Sony Ericsson. For 2004 IDC is forecasting sales in the US of 1.6 million devices rising to 7.4 million by 2007.

The most interesting aspect of 2003 was that the 4th quarter comprised about 70% of the year's shipments mainly on strengths of the Nokia 3650 and its variants. "Here we see the real strength of Nokia," says David. "It has ability to release a phone and suddenly create a convergent device market approaching a million units."

Overall David believes that Symbian OS based devices are "leading the pack" in the US, saying they have and will retain the largest market share for the foreseeable future. The main reason for this is that Nokia has an ability to move devices in significant volumes.

In addition to the sheer scale of Nokia's channel David also sees other significant advantages for Symbian because of its adoption by mobile phone companies like Nokia. David is of the opinion that many mass market consumers are still more inclined to purchase a mobile phone that they perceive as simple to use, so the fact that they do not immediately see Series 60 phones as powerful convergent computing devices is a sales advantage. "Consumers see Series 60 phones as enhanced mobile phones with picture taking capabilities," says David. "This is allowing Nokia to drive significant market penetration for Series 60 because this is a far easier proposition than selling these devices on their data features. Once these devices have market penetration Nokia can then introduce the owners to the extra uses and advanced features of their phones."

David believes this aspect of selling convergent devices is something which the competition is starting to learn. The new strategy adopted by Palm Source of having two versions of its operating system with one targeted at smartphones and Microsoft's smartphone strategy are signs of a new focus on creating specialized operating systems that leverage the core capabilities of mobile phones.

To many the US market is seen as one where enterprise has driven much of the mobile device adoption, unlike Europe or Asia where the consumer market leads. It is perhaps surprising therefore that David is of the view that "in the US its not really an issue of how Symbian is placed to garner enterprise customers, but more whether anyone will. There is just not a compelling value proposition or killer application that make convergent devices something enterprises will be adopting in any volume. There certainly are points of opportunity but not much more than that at this time."

In the enterprise space David again sees Symbian's advantage being that "Series 60 is going to become prevalent throughout a majority of its mobile phones." But the fact that Series 60 looks and feels like a mobile phones does not make owners aware of the fact that it is a capable enterprise device. "When an enterprise customer sees a Microsoft Smartphone, they immediately think of Outlook and Exchange. With a Palm they think PDA and organization. They don't yet identify these attributes with Series 60," says David. "But with phones like the Nokia 6620 it is clear that Nokia are working to raise the profile of Series 60 as an enterprise platform."

Overall however David does not see significant Enterprise adoption of smartphones because they can not yet see that they will make a valuable addition to their portfolio of devices. But because there is not going to be a large enterprise uptake of Symbian, Microsoft or Palm the playing field is perhaps more level than many may perceive.

2004 is also going to see several initiatives to move smartphone technology into the area of new media. UIQ has already been used in the Motorola A920/A925 in a phone designed for video and the Nokia 7700 media device based on Series 90 will be released shortly. However David does not see these technologies having a significant impact on the US market in the short term. "Part of the reason why the enterprise market has not burgeoned here in the US will also slow the adoption of mobile media," says David. "The networks are not as developed as elsewhere in the world, Europe for example has almost complete coverage, while in places like Korea the bandwidth is so much higher. The relative underdevelopment will hamper the uptake of advanced mobile media."

Another important factor in the growth of these types of services is the purchase of suitably equipped handsets. "Last year we saw good growth in handset shipments attributable to users upgrading from GSM to GSM/GPRS," says David "But it's always difficult to judge when these upgrade cycles will end and consumers will start moving to the next level of device features." David is expecting that handset manufacturers will have a tougher time in 2004. "While camera phones have helped to drive sales in 2003, there has yet to be any truly compelling reasons to upgrade to a high-end 3G phone. I believe that imaging and media is part of the future for the US, but more usage models must be demonstrated before the mass market consumer will move to purchase more advanced handsets."

Many have seen this lack of development in the US mobile networks as providing opportunities for WLAN to disrupt the mobile networks by providing alternative solutions. "I believe these technologies are most likely to compliment one another," says David. "For example a phone may use WiFi in the home and switch to GSM or CDMA while traveling. Beyond that the size of the US and the limits on WiFi cell coverage means that cellular technology has a role to play that WiFi can not really disrupt."

Through the shipment of Nokia phones Symbian OS has made good advances in the US market during 2003 and is well placed for future growth. However David notes that "due to structural reasons and a lack of compelling reasons to upgrade, smartphone uptake in the US may not be as dramatic as it is elsewhere. Because of this the US market offers both Symbian and competing platforms the opportunity to create a solid spring board for driving their smartphones into the market as the structural issues are resolved."