Russia’s YotaPhone targeting China’s tech-savvy with two-screen smartphones

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Song Xiaodong, CEO of Hangzhou Jielan (left), Russian ambassador to China Andrey Denisov (centre) and Vlad Martynov, CEO of YotaPhone, at the Beijing launch of the YotaPhone2. Photo: Wu Nan

Published: 12:00pm, 22 May 2015Updated: 4:47pm, 8 Jun 2015

Russia’s YotaPhone sees China as a key market for its unique dual screen devices, where it will target the growing number of young smartphone users looking for new technologies.

“All the other smartphones are the same and we want to be different," said Vlad Martynov, CEO of YotaPhone, at the launch on Wednesday in Beijing of the YotaPhone2.

The high-end phone, with screens on the front and back, has aroused much curiosity in China after Russian President Vladimir Putin gave one to President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing last November.

The phone comes with a top-range price-tag of 4,888 yuan (US$790), putting it well above the 2,999 yuan cost of No 1 Chinese maker Xiaomi’s XiaomiNote device.

More than 500 million Chinese use smartphones and more than 390 million smartphones were manufactured last year, according to iResearch Consulting Group. However the market slowed for the first time in six years in the first quarter, according to research company International Data Corporation (IDC), just as a host of new companies are planning to wade in with new offerings.

Apple still dominates the market, taking 25 per cent of smartphone sales in urban China’s 2,000 to 4,000 yuan (US$320 to 640) monthly income bracket. Xiaomi sold 61 million smartphones and made 74.3 billion yuan in revenue in 2014.