Finland mobile phones producer Nokia and NIS GLONASS, a subsidiary of financial corporation Sistema, have agreed to cooperate, RBC daily reports.

According to RBC daily’s source in the telecom market, Nokian and NIS GLONASS have signed a memorandum of understanding.

The parties have reportedly agreed on development of several joint projects, including the project on adapting GLONASS/GPS technologies to Nokia mobile devices and platforms. “Both parties will work on improving user interface for GLONASS services, and NIS will attract Finnish partners to working on development of Russian legislature on using GLONASS technologies,” the source said.

Nokia has confirmed the fact of the bilateral agreement but refused to provide further details. NIS GLONASS representatives said that the agreement would create conditions for mass implementation of GLONASS technologies on the Russian and foreign consumer markets.

Sergey Pevnev, the marketing director of Samsung Electronics, said that Samsung had been supplying devices, supporting GLONASS and GPS satellite navigation technologies, to the Russian market. “In the nearest future three new smartphones with the integrated double-standard chip will be available for sale,” Mr. Pevnev noted. However, Samsung is not going to sign any specific agreement with the Russian company.

Denis Kuskov, the director general of the company Telecom-Daily, believes that the decision on integrating double-standard chips supporting GLONASS/GPS has been timely for a while. “The more satellites a device can see, the more accurate is its positioning of location. Besides that, having GLONASS will allow the Finnish manufacturer of phones to avoid 25% customs tariffs on products without these sensors. Russian Government intends to introduce this tariff in January 2012,” the expert reminded.