Nokia will acquire all of the shares of Symbian that it does not already own, at a price of EUR 3.647 per share in cash, representing the approximately 52% of outstanding Symbian shares for approximately EUR 264 million. The deal is expected to close in Q4.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Ericsson, Panasonic Mobile Communicationsand Siemens International, which collectively hold 91% of these outstanding shares, have approved the deal. Nokia also expects Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to accept the offer.
Nokia is simultaneously establishing a Symbian Foundation, together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.
The Symbian OS is an open operating system for mobile devices. User interfaces designed for Symbian OS include S60 from Nokia, MOAP for the 3G network and UIQ, designed by UIQ Technology, a joint venture between Motorola and Sony Ericsson. A privately-owned company established in 1998, Symbian has its headquarters in London, UK and other offices in the United Kingdom, United States and Asia (Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo).
Nokia said mobile devices based on Symbian OS account for 60% of the converged mobile device segment (source: Canalys, 12 months to Q1 2008). Symbian OS represented approximately 7% of all mobile device sales in 2007, up from 5% in 2006 (source: Strategy Analytics). To date, more than 200 million Symbian OS based phones have been shipped, over 235 models, from 8 vendors and on more than 250 mobile networks around the world.http://www.nokia.comhttp://www.symbianfoundation.org
