Jolla said its Sailfish platform has been “officially accepted as the only mobile OS in Russia to be used in governmental and government controlled corporations’ upcoming mobile devices”.

The country’s authorities first stated support for Sailfish last year, as part of a long-term objective to create a more independent IT ecosystem in the country. For this market, the platform is licensed and developed by a local company, Open Mobile Platform limited, intended to “customise and further develop Sailfish OS for the Russian market, and to answer local Russian needs”.

Pavel Eyges, CEO of Open Mobile Platform (OMP), said: “We believe that open source based and independent Sailfish OS is the mobile OS platform of the future. It has great potential in Russia and elsewhere. Sailfish OS is based on the principals of participation and partnership, and we are actively recruiting partners and developer community members to take the initiative to new heights in Russia.”

According to TechCrunch, Jolla’s investors include shareholders in OMP. Jolla had a tough time last year as it looked to cut costs, although it subsequently completed another funding round as it looked to push forward with its platform licensing strategy.

The report also said that the Russian authorities had looked at both Sailfish and the Samsung-backed Tizen, before backing the Jolla proposition.

Jolla also said it has started discussions in China and South Africa about building local mobile OS ecosystems for the countries.