Multinational communications giant Alcatel intends to strengthen its position on the world cell-phone market by selling its GSM 900/1800-system phones in Russia.

The firm signed a contract with one of the largest Russian operators, Mobile Telesystems (MTS), to supply the lower-priced handset, officials said.

Alcatel hopes to control about 10 percent of the Russian cell-phone market by the end of 2000. To reach the target, the company would have to sell 200,000 handsets.

The cost of the deal with MTS has not been revealed.

MTS said there would be enough handsets to deal with the potential demand.

"This won’t be a situation like for VimpelCom [which last year began selling handsets for about $50], and they didn’t have enough phones to meet demand," MTS representative Eva Prokofieva said.

For Alcatel’s target consumers – young people – prices for the handsets will be kept low – around $100. They should be in stores in the next couple of weeks, officials said.

The new Alcatel phones will come in various colors and feature a loudspeaker function, which used to be unique to French company Sagem and is practically unknown on the Russian market.

MTS said it is the first time in Russia that a manufacturing company has worked together with an operator – the MTS logo will appear on the handsets. However, Alcatel officials said that they will be selling phones not only to MTS but also to regional companies.

Alcatel aims to increase services and equipment in all areas of the telecoms market, it said. In 1995, Alcatel was the first company to supply GSM equipment to Russia at a time when few knew what GSM was.

Later, the company supplied equipment to VimpelCom for expanding its standard and creating a dual range GSM 900/1800 network.

Last year, the company’s turnover reached $23.46 billion worldwide, but company officials said they were not satisfied with the market share. The company ranks fifth in the mobile-phone market, with 7.6 percent at the end of 1999. Nokia is in first with 33.1 percent, followed by Motorola (16.2 percent), Ericsson (10.4) percent and Siemens (8.3 percent).