Russian smartphone maker Yota Devices to open representative office in Dubai

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. Russian modern developer Yota Devices, the company behind the YotaPhone, an Android device with a regular LCD screen on the front and a touch-sensitive e-ink panel on the back, will open a representative office in Dubai, the company said in a statement on Monday. “The office in Dubai will control sales processes, perform marketing policy of the company and form sales channels of the YotaPhone 2 on the markets of the Middle East,” the statement said. The office will be headed by Abdul Karim Sawan, the company’s vice president for Middle East and Africa. He will be responsible for the strategy to strengthen the brand, form demand and increase the share of the YotaPhone 2 on the smartphone market in the Persian Gulf countries. The company already develops a strategic partnership with Etisalat, a telecommunications operator in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Moscow-based Yota Devices has been developing mobile devices for six years. It has offices in Russia, Canada, China, Finland, Singapore, and Germany, and development centres in Moscow, Finland and Singapore. The second generation YotaPhone, the dual-screen smartphone with an active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display on one side and an electronic paper display on the other, was first unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February. Like its predecessor, the YotaPhone 2 has a traditional smartphone display on the front and an e-ink display on the back. But it is slightly bigger than the previous version, with a 5-inch AMOLED display replacing the 4.3-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) of the original YotaPhone. The 4.7-inch e-ink display on the back is always on and fully touch-responsive. In addition to the two screens, the new YotaPhone has a Qualcomm quad-core 800 series processor and is equipped with 32GB of built-in storage and 2GB of RAM. The device has an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter on the other side. The smartphone was presented in Russia on December 2 and went on sale on December 6. It costs 39,990 roubles ($660). Besides Russia, the YotaPhone 2 will enter the market of 20 European countries, China and other countries of the Asia-Pacific region as well as Canada and Latin America. Read more