Yandex Blog

Jolla, an independent mobile developer from Finland, has chosen Yandex.Store for the Android app distribution on their new smartphone. Yandex.Store will be preinstalled on the highly-anticipated Jolla device.

The Finnish smartphone maker has been attracting a lot of industry and media attention for their Sailfish OS, a Linux-based, open mobile operating system, which they have been developing based on previously Nokia-backed MeeGo. Former Nokians did what they do best: they developed a smartphone – a smartphone that would carry Sailfish OS ‘to offer choice, to bring something different to an industry [which is] stagnating under the Android + iOS duopoly’.

What Jolla also did was make their Sailfish OS Android-compatible and pick Yandex.Store for their Android app distribution. Yandex.Store, an alternative Android app store, which currently features over 85,000 apps in 17 categories, offers the best and most popular social networking and communication apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Skype, Viber, WeChat, as well as games, productivity apps and music apps. The up-and-coming alternative Android app store has an in-app purchase opportunity and is available on smartphones and tablets in 37 languages.

"Jolla's strategy is always to work with the most applicable service partners in specific markets and create long-term strategic partnerships. We analysed a number of alternative Android app stores to use for our first markets in Europe, and quickly found out that what Yandex offered was very competitive and that they were very interested in developing their app store together with us for their future needs and for the needs of Sailfish customers", says Sami Pienimaki, co-founder of Jolla.

Jolla and Yandex.Store were made for each other. We both like dialogue. We both like to talk to the developer community and to our users, and we both want to hear them. We both support community-based initiatives promoting choice and fair market. Jolla is the initiator of Sailfish OS, an open mobile operating system, aimed ‘to bring innovation to a stagnating market and help mobile industry players to stay on the bleeding edge of the mobile OS development’. Yandex.Store is a supporter of One Platform Foundation, a global open-source initiative, whose aim is to help users, app developers and OEMs to cope with Android fragmentation.

Jolla and Yandex.Store were united by one purpose – make the life of every Android app developer easier. Yandex.Store, created and supported by app developers, understands better than anyone else what app developers want. And what they want is a quick and easy way to distribute their apps to a maximum number of stores. Now, anyone submitting their Android app to Yandex.Store can enjoy a new distribution channel – Sailfish OS on Jolla smartphones.