Samsung in Russia will sell smartphones based on its Tizen operating system (OS) only to business clients. This is not the first mobile OS from Samsung - three years ago, phones with Bada accounted for 15% of all phone sales

Samsung Z1 presentation in New Delhi, India (Photo: REUTERS 2015)

Samsung in Russia is not going to sell smartphones with its own Tizen operating system, a company representative told RBC. He assured that in Russia Tizen will be implemented exclusively as a project for corporate users.

Sales of the world's first smartphone Samsung Z1 with Tizen started in India three weeks ago, and today it began selling in Bangladesh. In these countries, anyone can buy phones, the price is less than $100. The Z1 has a 4-inch screen, a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. The phone works with two SIM cards in 3G networks and has a built-in FM receiver.

There are already smartphones with Tizen in Russia. Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov posted a photo of the phone on his Instagram yesterday. “I’m holding in my hands a phone with the new open Tizen operating system,” Nikiforov told his subscribers.

Russian authorities began looking for alternatives to American and European computer programs in the spring of 2014, after the first Western sanctions against Russia came into force. For example, it is now impossible to update applications and the system on iPhone and Android smartphones in Crimea. “Towards the demonopolization of the global IT ecosystem,” Minister Nikiforov captioned a Tizen photo on Instagram.

Samsung unveiled TIzen in June at the Tizen Developer Conference 2014 in San Francisco. They promised that sales of these smartphones will start before the end of the year in Russia and India. In Russia, the Korean company even invited journalists to a press conference about the start of smartphone sales in July, but it fell through. Tizen was also late in India: the corresponding press conference was also canceled there. But the Samsung Z1 with Tizen finally appeared in Indian retail in January 2015.

Refocusing on corporate clients for Tizen is a serious change in the strategy of the Korean company in the Russian market. Previously, it focused on the mass consumer. Samsung is going to start selling Tizen smartphones in the world from Russia, because in the past Samsung’s own operating system, Bada, was popular here, the head of Samsung Mobile in Russia, Arkady Graf, said in the summer. Thus, in the first quarter of 2012 in Russia, smartphones with Bada accounted for 15% of all smartphones (in units) - third place after Android (40%) and Symbian (34%), according to the research company J'son & Partners. “Tizen is a kind of evolution of Bada,” said Graf to RBC.

Before smartphones, Samsung tested Tizen on other devices – Samsung NX300 and Samsung NX2000 cameras, Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches.

Samsung smartphones running Tizen OS will not be available in Russian stores - RBC