A Decade On - Nokia's Record Breaking Phone

Ten years ago, Nokia showed off a new mobile phone that was destined to become the world's most popular mobile phone ever.

With over 250 million sold, the Nokia 1100 mobile phone was announced in August 2003, and went on sale shortly afterwards. By May 2007, sales had reached 200 million, and has since risen to an estimated 250 million, although the phone is now discontinued.

When launched, the world had 1.2 billion mobile phone users, and Nokia was predicting that it would reach 2 billion in 2008. Today, it is estimated that there are around 6 billion phone accounts in use, although that number is boosted by high use of multiple SIM cards by customers in many developing countries.

When Nokia announced that it had shipped its billionth mobile phone in November 2005 -- it was a Nokia 1100 that came off the factory assembly line.

The phone offered a reliable simplicity and was aimed at the developing markets, where its sealed keypad and non-slip sides for dusty and wet climates, plus a built-in torch made it exceptionally popular. With a standby time of up to 400 hours, it was ideal for countries with intermittent electricity supplies.

A batch of Nokia 1100 handsets made in Nokia's since closed factory in Bochum, Germany later fetched huge prices on the black market in 2009 when it was found that a software flaw made it easier to reprogramme the handsets to intercept SMS messages being sent to online banking customers.

Originally nicknamed the "penny" when under development, it adopted Nokia's classic numerical naming convention when announced in August 2003.

The display screen was rudimentary, even by the standards of the time, with 96x65 pixels, but more usefully, up to 4 lines text messaging, a changeable font size and predictive text long before it was popularised by Apple's spelling mistakes.

The phone also came with Snake -- reputed to be the world's most widely played computer game after it was put in most Nokia phones.

However, announced at the same time as the Nokia 1100, the comparable Nokia 2300 faded into obscurity as its more famous brother soared up the sales charts.

A decade later, the Nokia 1100 is still the world's most popular mobile phone ever sold.