The mobile industries newcomer Jolla has announced the first sales of their much awaited smartphones to take place at Helsinki’s Narikkatori this month.
The first 450 among the tens of thousands pre-ordered Jolla-phones will be sold for eager early bird customers on the 27th of November from a DNA stand at Helsinki’s busiest central mall. The product launch was announced yesterday at the startup event Slush, after an emotional speech by Jolla’s founder Marc Dillon.
According to Jolla’s CEO Toni Pienimäki, Jolla has no intention of rushing into the top of the mobile markets, but instead, plans on a steady growth based on demand.
Finland will be their first target market, followed by an expansion to other European countries. Jolla’s original plan was to conquer the gigantic markets of China, but the plans, as they usually do, have changed.
“China, of course, remains important, but we don’t want to whistle past the graveyard”, says Pienimäki in an interview with Digitoday.
The phones are manufactured in China by Chinese tech production subcontractors.
“We will be gradually increasing production, depending on how the sales go, though the demand will probably surpass our capacity to supply for a while.”
The revenue from first sales ought to do good for the company’s economical situation, after a long process of product design and development.
The Jolla-phones will operate on their very own Sailfish OS which is compatible with Google’s Android OS. This means the Jolla-phones can use Android applications. These applications can be purchased from the Russian app store Yandex, already found pre-installed in the mobile device. Android applications acquired from other sources are still compatible with the Jolla-phone tough, users can choose for themselves where they will be getting their apps from.
According to Pienimäki there are over 85 000 Android apps in Yandex’ selection.
“Yandex is like Russia’s Google and they are ambitiously expanding themselves outside of Russia. The store has been translated in over 37 languages, so even if the company’s ownership is Russian, the service itself is not necessarily in Russian”, Pienimäki said to Digitoday.
Another unique feature the Jolla-phones will bring is the “2nd half”, meaning the phones detachable back cover. Switching it will change the appearance of the devices user interface, a feature that Pienimäki hopes will bring 3rd party manufacturers to produce new variations of back covers.
The next Jolla-phones can be expected to arrive by the beginning of December when DNA begins their official sales in DNA stores across the country.
