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Espoo, Finland June 24, 2008 -- Nokia today announced it has launched a cash offer to
acquire all of
the shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not
already own, at a price of €3.647 per share. The net cash outlay
from Nokia to purchase the approximately 52% of Symbian Limited shares
it does not already own will be approximately €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% 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 today by Nokia, together with AT&T,
LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson,
STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. More information
about the planned foundation can be found at www.symbianfoundation.org.
"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 continued.
Symbian Limited is the software company that develops and licenses
Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for mobile
devices. User interfaces designed for Symbian OS include S60 from
Nokia, MOAP (S) 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).
"Ten years ago, Symbian was established by far sighted players to offer
an advanced open operating system and software skills to the whole
mobile industry", said Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian. "Our vision is
to become the most widely used software platform on the planet and
indeed today Symbian OS leads its market by any measure. Today's
announcement is a bold new step to achieve that vision by embracing a
complete and proven platform, offered in an open way, designed to
stimulate innovation, which is at the heart of everything we do."
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.
More than 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.
A press conference will be webcast live from London today at 11:00 UK
time and will be available for replay later. To see the web cast,
please visit www.nokia.com/press or www.symbianfoundation.org.
Image of Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo courtesy of Nokia website
Image of Nigel Clifford courtesy of Symbian website
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