Motorola pulls out of Symbian, sells stock
- Added:
- Aug 29, 2003
The founding shareholders - which also include Ericsson, Panasonic, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson - made a pact not to sell any shares for five years when Symbian was formed back in 1998.
This agreement expired yesterday and Motorola has decided to offload its stock, with Psion increasing its stake from 25.3% to 31.1%. But Nokia, which owns 19%, will buy the remaining shares to become the largest shareholder in the smartphone technology developer, owning almost a third of the company.
Psion said it will pay £17.4m in cash for Motorola's shares, with Nokia spending upwards of £35m for the rest of the Motorola-owned stock. Symbian is valued at about £300m based on these transactions - substantially lower than some analysts believed the company was worth, forcing Psion's shares to slide in early trade.
Yet Motorola's exit comes at a time when Symbian is making real progress in taking its smartphone operating system to market.
Almost 2.7m Symbian-powered phones were delivered to network operators in the six months to 30 June, compared with just 230,000 in the first half of 2002. This helped double first-half revenues to £21.1m, from £9.5m.
Psion, which today reported a 28% reduction in its net loss to £11m for the six months to 30 June, described Symbian as "an increasingly successful business".
"Psion will continue to play its role in driving Symbian towards the successful exploitation of its market," said Psion chairman, David Potter. "At the same time, realising the value of our investment in Symbian for the optimal benefit of Psion shareholders is a key strategic goal."
Motorola did not give a reason for selling its stake, but said that as a Symbian licensee, it would continue to support the Symbian OS for specific customer and business needs, such as in its 3G devices.
21 August:
"www.symbian.com ":http://www.symbian.com
"www.psion.com ":http://www.psion.com
"www.nokia.com ":http://www.nokia.com
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