YotaPhone 3 launching in Q1 2016 with help from ZTE

Yota Devices, the Russian company behind the dual-screen Yota Phone and Yota Phone 2 have announced a partnership with China's ZTE for maunufacturing the YotaPhone 3. The deal has been actually signed with ZTE's associate companies ZTE Supply Chain Co. Ltd (ZTESC) and X&F to jointly develop the YotaPhone 3. So technically, it's not ZTE who will manufacture the phone directly, but its associate companies.

"The partnership involves the production of new generation of YotaPhone smartphones, as well as the development and integration of mobile services and software." said the Russian company.

While the previous YotaPhone's were manufactured in Singapore, the YotaPhone 3 will be manufactured in China. This will result in 30% reduction in the manufacturing cost, enabling the company to launch the YotaPhone 3 at a lower price. In addition, a special edition of YotaPhone will be assembled in Russia at the same time. The initial production run of the YotaPhone 3 is expected to be 100,000 units. The launch date is scheduled for Q1 2016, which coincides with the MWC event in Barcelona.

The YotaPhone is a traditional Android phone on the front and on the back it has an eInk display to make reading easier and battery life better. The second display is used to display various information like weather, notification, time, etc.The first YotaPhone was launched in the beginning of 2013, but started releasing the shipment by December. The YotaPhone 2 was unvieled at MWC 2014.

The first gen YotaPhone made its way to India last year and was priced Rs. 23,499 and due to the cold response received several price cuts. It is now available in the country for Rs. 9,000.