The first smartphone using Russian positioning technology GLONASS went on sale on Monday, operator MTS said, marking a milestone in a project creating rival to the U.S.-led Global Positioning System (GPS).
The MTS Glonass 945 smartphone is manufactured by China's ZTE Corp, uses Google Inc's Android software and also supports the rival GPS technology.
Russia hopes the project will spark a domestic technology revolution and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has personally spearheaded the project acting as a salesman for the system on international visits.
"Successfully bringing a product to market is a significant step forward for the GLONASS project," said Canalys analyst Tim Shepherd on Monday.
"Other handset vendors will be particularly eager to see how Russian consumers respond, to understand whether GLONASS support is a matter of appealing to national pride or whether it genuinely encourages greater location-oriented usage," he said.
Russia has been developing Glonass -- its answer to the U.S.-Air Force operated GPS -- since 1976. Having spent $2 billion in the last 10 years, it is expected to provide a comparable service to GPS next year.
Russia plans to introduce duties of around 25 percent by 2012 on the import of mobile phones without the GLONASS navigation system, as part of efforts to encourage worldwide adoption of the technology.
In August, the head of the state GLONASS operator said companies such as Nokia Oyj, Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc and Qualcomm Inc were in talks with Russian chip manufacturers about the mass production of handheld devices enabled with both GLONASS and GPS.
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