PRESS: VimpelCom to exclusively sell Nokia smartphones in Russia

MOSCOW, Jul 16 (PRIME) -- Russian mobile operator VimpelCom, which also runs a wide retail chain, has signed an agreement on strategic partnership with Finnish mobile phone company HMD Global to exclusively sell smartphones Nokia 1 and Nokia 2.1 on the local market, business daily Kommersant reported on Monday.

Stores of VimpelCom, working under the Beeline brand, start selling the Nokia 1 on Monday for 5,990 rubles and the Nokia 2.1 for 7,990 rubles in early August. The both devices run on operating system Android Oreo, version Go.

Partnership with VimpelCom is “an important stage of strengthening presence of HMD Global on the Russian market,” head of HMD’s office in Russia and the CIS Alexei Zenkov said.

The Nokia brand was rebooted by HMD after the business had been purchased from U.S. giant Microsoft and returned to the market a year ago with a new line of smartphones. According to Russian electronics sellers M.Video and Eldorado, Nokia was among the top five biggest brands in the country in units in June.

Russia’s smartphone market expanded 23% on the year to more than 195 billion rubles and up 1% to 12.7 million units in January–June.

(62.2934 rubles – U.S. $1)

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