About 40 million Symbian-powered phones have been shipped in Japan for the first nine months of 2008 alone, with shipments for the first half of 2008 up by heathy 12.5 percent compared to the same period last year.

Symbian OS

Six companies -- Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Nokia, Motorola, Sharp and Sony Ericsson -- have so far produced 94 Symbian-powered phone models this year.

Toshio Miki of NTT DoCoMo, Japan's biggest mobile carrier, explained that "the robustness, security and ease of customisation of Symbian OS contributes to a short development time and reduced development cost, which I believe has served as the driving force for the total shipments of over 40 million mobile phones based on Symbian OS in Japan."

Symbian first entered the Japanese market in 2003.

For a complete list of the 94 Symbian-powered phones now sold in Japan, visit the Symbian site.