Private company

Siemens Mobile

Logo: Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

Defunct German mobile phone manufacturer

Siemens Mobile was a German mobile phone manufacturer and a division of Siemens AG. Siemens sold Siemens Mobile to the Taiwan-based BenQ in 2005, subsequently becoming BenQ-Siemens and succeeded by Gigaset. The last Siemens-branded mobile phones, the AL21, A31 and AF51, were released in November 2005.2 It employed 6,000 people.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

2000Founded1
  • Industrytelecommunications device, telecommunications industry1
  • HeadquartersMunich1
  • Founded inMunich1
  • Legal formGesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung1

Siemens Mobile was a German mobile phone manufacturer and a division of Siemens AG. Siemens sold Siemens Mobile to the Taiwan-based BenQ in 2005, subsequently becoming BenQ-Siemens and succeeded by Gigaset. The last Siemens-branded mobile phones, the AL21, A31 and AF51, were released in November 2005.2

Corporate structure

Siemens Mobile is part of a group headed by Siemens. 615 entities, 60 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

The first Siemens mobile phone, the Siemens Mobiltelefon C1, was launched in 1985. In 1994 the Siemens S1 GSM phone was launched. In 1997 Siemens launched the first phone with a colour screen, the Siemens S10, with a screen capable of displaying red, green, blue and white. In the same year Siemens launched the first "outdoor" phone, the Siemens S10 Active, with enhanced shock, dust and splash protection. Siemens launched the first slider phone, the Siemens SL10, in 1999.

Siemens acquired the mobile phone division of Bosch in 2000. In the same year Siemens launched one of the first phones with an MP3 player and external memory card support (MultiMediaCard), the Siemens SL45.

In 2003 Siemens launched its first phone running on the Symbian OS operating system, the Siemens SX1. The phone featured hot swappable MultiMediaCard. In the same year Siemens launched the Xelibri range of fashion phones. In 2005 Siemens launched the first phone with real GPS support, the Siemens SXG75.

As of Q3 2000, Siemens had an 8.6% mobile handset market share, putting it behind Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia. For the calendar year 2003, Siemens was again fourth behind Samsung, Motorola and Nokia, with a figure of 8.5%. In 2004 it decreased to 7.2%. Siemens Mobile was making large losses and plummeting sales at this time. By the first quarter of 2005, market share was down to 5.6% as it fell behind competitors LG and Sony Ericsson. Their Xelibri range of phones, which was the company's answer to the fashionable handset trend at the time, became a costly failure.

On 7 June 2005, the Taiwanese company BenQ agreed to acquire the loss-making Siemens Mobile from Siemens, together with exclusive right to use the Siemens trademark on its mobile phones for 5 years. Before transferring the mobile phone subsidiary to BenQ, Siemens invested 250 million euros and wrote down assets amounting to 100 million euros. Siemens also acquired a 2.5% stake in BenQ for 50 million euros. BenQ subsequently released mobile phones under the BenQ-Siemens brand, from its German unit. In 2006 the German unit of BenQ filed for bankruptcy.

Siemens restarted the production of mobile phones under the Gigaset brand name.

From Wikipedia’s article on Siemens Mobile, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

  • mobile phone

Listed on Wikidata.1

Classifications

Depending on their name, the Siemens mobiles have the following classifications:

A series: low-cost phones with basic functionality.

C series: mid-range phones.

M series: phones with military specifications for outdoor activities.

Read the full text

S series: flagship phones

U series: UMTS devices manufactured in 2003 by Motorola Mobility, USA and rebranded under "Siemens" name.

Secondary alphabet position initials

xF cradle phones

xL sliding phones (exceptions: Siemens SL45 and Siemens CL75)

xX phones with advanced features

xK phones with a full QWERTY keyboard (Siemens SK65)

Within a class, the numbers have the following meaning:

the first digit (1-9) denotes the level of functionality of the phone;

the second digit indicates the generation of the phone. The phones are also of the first generation of the model, containing the numbers 1, 6, 8.

List of products

Siemens A31

Siemens A35

Siemens A36

Siemens A40

Siemens A50: one of the most popular Siemens phones, Shares same hardware as C45 and can be upgraded to C45 by firmware flash.

Siemens A51

Siemens A52: monochrome, GSM 900 / GSM 1800, no GPRS, no USB, IrDA or Bluetooth. Same as A55/A56

Siemens A53

Siemens A55: monochrome, GSM 900 / GSM 1800, no GPRS, no USB, no IrDA or Bluetooth. Shares same hardware as C55 and can be upgraded to C55 by firmware flash.

Siemens A56: monochrome, GSM 850 / GSM 1900, no GPRS, no USB, no IrDA or Bluetooth. Shares same hardware as C56 and can be upgraded to C56 by firmware flash.

Siemens A56i

Siemens A57

Siemens A60

Siemens A62

Siemens A65: CSTN 101x80 display, Triband (900 / 1800 / 1900)

Siemens A70, last Siemens with monochrome display, Triband (900 / 1800 / 1900), completely unrelated to the A55/C55.

Siemens A75

Siemens AF51

Siemens AP75 (Developed by BenQ, same with BenQ M580)

Siemens AL21/AL21 Hello Kitty (TFT 130x130 display, GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900, no camera (same as CF110))

Siemens AX72

Siemens AX75 (taking pictures supported when connected with the QuickPic IQP-500 external accessories camera module like S55, S57, CF62 etc.)

Siemens C1

Siemens C2

Siemens C3

Siemens C4

Siemens C5

Siemens C10

Siemens C11

Siemens C25

Siemens C28

Siemens C30

Siemens C35

Siemens C35i

Siemens C45

Siemens C55: monochrome, GSM 900 / GSM 1800, with GPRS, no USB, no IrDA or Bluetooth. One of the most popular Siemens phones

Siemens C56: monochrome, GSM 850 / GSM 1900, with GPRS, no USB, no IrDA or Bluetooth.

Siemens C60

Siemens C61

Siemens C62 (Co-developed with Sony Ericsson sameness platform with T600, T610i)

Siemens C65

Siemens C66

Siemens C70: Identical hardware to C65

Siemens C71

Siemens C72

Siemens C75

Siemens CC75 (cancelled)

Siemens CF62

Siemens CF65

Siemens CF75 (CF65 based)

Siemens CF110: TFT 130x130 display, GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900, no camera

Siemens CFX65 (the first Siemens clamshells form factor with built in VGA camera and flash. CFX65 is the only model of Siemens that had a torch, you close the flip and double press volume the up key to start the torch.)

Siemens CL50 (Developed By Arista)

Siemens CL55 (Developed By LG Electronics )

Siemens CL75, CL75 Black Edition, CL75 Poppy Edition

Siemens CX65: TFT 132x176 display, GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900, VGA (640 x 480 pixel) camera, IRDA (Based on M65)

Siemens CX66 (minor changes for some countries)

Siemens CX70: TFT 132x176 display, GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900, VGA (640 x 480 pixel) camera, IRDA (Identical hardware to CX65)

Siemens CX70 Emoty (in the CX70 family's)

Siemens CXV70 (in the CX70 family's for Vodafone)

Siemens CXT70 (in the CX70 family's for T-Mobile)

Siemens CXO70 (in the CX70 family's for O2)

Siemens CX75

Siemens E10

Siemens M30: one of the most popular Siemens phones

Siemens M35

Siemens M35i: one of the most popular Siemens phones

Siemens M45

Siemens M50

Siemens M55 Scorpions

Siemens M56: GSM 850 / GSM 1900 version of M55. Note that it is not triband.

Siemens M65

Siemens M65 Rescue Edition

Siemens M75

Siemens MC60

Siemens ME45

Siemens ME75 (C75 Based)

Siemens MT50

Siemens P1

Siemens S1

Siemens S3

Siemens S3 COM 1995

Siemens S4

Siemens S6

Siemens S10 (World's First phone with colour display)

Siemens S11 (Variant of S10 with GSM 1800 frequency while S10 was GSM 900 but it is also the world's first phone with colour display)

Siemens S15

Siemens S25

Siemens S35i

Siemens S40

Siemens S42

Siemens S45

Siemens S45i

Siemens S46

Siemens S55 (Fully wireless connections with Bluetooth 1.1 and IrDA port)

Siemens S55 Formula One

Siemens S56

Siemens S57 (Only IrDA port supportable)

Siemens S65

Siemens S65 DVBH, SXX65 (Concept phone) run on LINUX

Siemens S66 (Minor-changes for some countries), S66 or S65 (for Xingular)

Siemens S68 (rebranding and selling in BenQ-Siemens S68, the SP65 successors)

Siemens S75 ( FE75 Internal pre-models)

Siemens SF65 (co-development with Philips N.V. (France), the same models with Philips 760 twists)

Siemens SFG75 (Developed by BenQ, same with BenQ S80 UMTS)

Siemens SG75 (cancelled, in the same family with SXG75)

Siemens SK65, SK6B and SK6R (Co-development with The RIM BlackBerry and run parallels between "Siemens_X65 platform" and "BlackBerry 3.8 OS". Select BB Icons on Main Menu then press "Option"-> "About" for the BBOS version pre installed info.)

Siemens SK65 Burlwood Editions

Siemens SP65 (S65 without Camera)

Siemens SL10: the world firstly sliding mobile phone with a four-colour screen (Red, Green, Blue and White)

Siemens SL42

Siemens SL45: the worlds first phone with an MP3 Player

Siemens SL45i

Siemens SL55

Siemens SL56: the American version of the Siemens SL55, available only on AT&T.

Siemens SL65: TFT 130x130 display, GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900, VGA (640 x 480 pixel) camera, IRDA, slider form factor

Siemens SL65 ESCADA Edition

Siemens SL75/ SL7C

Siemens SL80 (re-branding and selling in BenQ-Siemens SL80 Hello Kitty Edition)

Siemens SLV140 (re-branding and selling in BenQ-Siemens EF81)

Siemens ST55 (ODM Developed By Arista)

Siemens ST60 (For T-Mobile)

Siemens SX1, first and only smartphone developed and produced by Siemens AG, run on Symbian OS

Siemens SX2 (cancelled) run on Symbian OS

Siemens SX45 (Developed by hTC, run on Windows Mobile 2003 Edition)

Siemens SX56 (Developed by hTC, run on Windows Mobile 5.0 Edition)

Siemens SX66 (Developed by hTC, run on Windows Mobile 5.0 Edition can upgradable to WM 6.0 Edition)

Siemens SXG75 (The first Siemens with BrewOS by Qualcomm and build internal GPS real-time functions.)

Siemens SXX75 (Concept phone, Full touchscreen-slides platform. runs on BrewOS by Qualcomm)

Siemens U10 (UMTS)(The first Siemens UMTS (3G) model's run on Moto Linux platform A and it was developed by Motorola Mobility.)

Siemens U15 (The second Siemens UMTS (3G) model's run on Moto Linux platform A, and it was developed by Motorola Mobility.)

Xelibri X1

Xelibri X2

Xelibri X3

Xelibri X4

Xelibri X5

Xelibri X6

Xelibri X7

Xelibri X8

From Wikipedia’s article on Siemens Mobile, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. Aug 31, 2005Dissolved Dissolved1
  2. 2000Founded Founded in Munich1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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