About a year ago, in protest of the war in Ukraine, Apple stopped selling the iPhone in Russia. Kremlin officials have recently been banned from using the iPhone in the country amid spying fears.
To Russians concerned that they won’t be able to afford the latest iPhone model, their government told them not to fear. A subsidiary of a defense industry conglomerate in Russia called Rostec developed what it called a replacement for the iPhone called AYYA T1.
How has it worked? Not very good, according to the Russian economic daily vedomosti, Russian consumers have purchased less than 1,000 units of the AYYA T1 since the device went on sale.
The actual number of phones sold, according to the report, is 905. That’s just 18% of the 5,000 units produced and is one of the biggest flops of a phone.
To put this figure in context, last year some 25 million smartphones were sold in Russia. Poor sales forced Russian shops to reduce the price to 11,000 rubles (130 euros), which is the break-even point.
The retail version of the phone works withnAndroid 11, while the business variant has the Russian Aurora operating system installed. There are 2,000 business units in the hands of Russian law enforcement officers and employees of the country’s nuclear power agency.
The phone features a 6.5″ LCD screen with 720 x 1600 resolution. It is powered by MediaTek Helio P70 SoC, 4GB of RAM and 12MP and 5MP rear cameras. In front is a 13 MP front selfie camera.
It includes a 4000mAh battery with a USB-C charging port. There is no 5G connectivity, but there is a microSD slot with a capacity of 128GB.