Samsung Prepares Tizen Smartphones For Russia And India – Report

Samsung is reportedly planning to unveil the first smartphone running the open source Tizen operating system at a launch event in Moscow in the next few weeks.

The Wall Street Journal claims that the event will be timed to coincide with a Tizen developers’ conference in San Francisco, due to be held in early June.

The Korean manufacturer confirmed last month that it was working on two Tizen smartphones and the company is believed to be close to launching a Tizen handset in India, where work is also underway on creating a smart TV running the platform.

Samsung Tizen smartphone

Samsung launched its first Tizen devices, the Samsung Gear 2 range of smartwatches, at Mobile World Congress in February and is the leading backer of the platform, which also has support from Intel, Huawei and several operators. However no smartphone running the open source platform has yet materialised.

Some have been delayed, and Japanese manufacturer NTT DoCoMo abandoned a planned launch, weakening expectations for the platform, but Samsung hopes it can increase the amount of revenue it can generate from services on its devices.

The company is believed to be deliberately targeting emerging markets or countries in which it has a strong existing presence and claims that if Tizen accounts for 15 percent of its future smartphone shipments it will have been a success.

Android remains crucial to Samsung’s prospects however, with the Samsung Galaxy S5 being released in the UK last month and the company has plans to launch an Android-powered smartwatch in the near future.

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