Mobile Phone News:

Engadget Mobile are reporting on a story that kinda puts the sales figures of the iPhone to shame.

Symbian have announced their official figures for 2007, and as you can see from the title, the number of phones they shifted is simply staggering. 77.3 million is… a rather large number of phones. It’s one of those numbers that we, as humans, almost can’t contemplate. I mean you could count to 77 million if you wanted, but you won’t!

Of course, when you think about, Symbian have their fingers in a lot of different pies, so it’s not surprising they shifted a lot. Nokia’s entire Nseries range (eg/ the N82) uses Symbian, Sony Ericsson’s top-end pda-phones (P1i) and Walkman phones (W960i) use it… so, when you’ve got the 2 most well-known names in the business backing you, it’s not a great surprise that you’re going to do well.

But still, 77 million! That’s some achievement, that is, so my hat goes off to Symbian. Certainly puts the 4 million iPhones sold into perspective…

But what of 2008? Well, Nokia are pretty much guaranteed to keep on using Symbian, although they’re also technically involved with the LiMo foundation, so we may well see Linux-based Nokia phone. And with the Xperia X1, Sony Ericsson are also using Windows Mobile.

But let’s not forget 3 phones that are upcoming. If anything, these three could be the biggest Symbian hits ever. First up, there’s N96. That’s going to sell, no question. Score 1 for Symbian…

Then, there’s Nokia’s upcoming, super-secretive touchscreen phone, using the new S60 Touch interface. Score 2 for Symbian…

And finally, there’s the big one; alongside the X1, there’s another Sony Ericsson, that hasn’t been announced yet, but which is rumoured (I emphasise that it’s a rumour, but I want it to be true) to be getting announced tomorrow. It’s known by its codename ‘Paris’. If the X1 is going to be a serious all-round solution, the Paris is going to be the ultimate mobile phone, the do-everything, be-everything Symbian-based powerhouse.

It’s going to be a home run for Symbian, because it will be, in all likelihood, the best phone ever made, the Bugatti Veyron of mobile phones. It’s going to, I predict, make Symbian sell even more this year…

Because when it comes out, that phone won’t be called the ‘Paris’.

It’ll be the phone I’ve been waiting for since last year.

It’ll be the almighty Sony Ericsson P5i…

Watch this space…