The unlisted firm - majority owned by electronics group Psion - said shipment numbers rose to 2.68 million from 230,000 in the same period last year, pushing revenues up to �21.1m.

The company is developing its Symbian Operating System as the industry standard for the next generation of handsets.

At the end of the six months to June 30, 26 phones using the technology were under development by nine handset makers.

Most of the new products are expected to come to the market during the next 18 months.

Losses narrow

Symbian also announced that royalty revenues - it gets a cut of all phones sold using its system - rose to �10.2m in the first half, compared with �1.5m in the same period last year.

The growth in sales helped the firm cut its first half losses to �15m from �21.8m last year.

Despite the encouraging results, analysts said a market float for the firm, first mooted by Psion in 2000, was still as distant as ever.

Experts do not expect the firm to break even until 2005 at the earliest. To do this it must ship around 20 million units a year.

Symbian has repeatedly said it will not consider an initial public offering until the stock market is sufficiently stable and demand for its products is established and thriving.

Looking ahead, the company said its second half performance "depends significantly" on the sales of phones due to be launched later in the year, including a new one from Nokia.

Shares in its majority shareholder Psion fell as investors locked in profits from a jump of over 20% this week on expectations of strong results from Symbian.