MegaFon, the third-largest mobile phone company in Russia, announced on Tuesday it will be Apple’s iPhone 3G distributor in the largest country on the globe. The Apple highly-anticipated, high-end handsets will hit Russian shelves later this year.

The announcement comes after VimpelCom Group’s Beeline made public last Thursday its agreement with the Cupertino, California-based software maker to sell the iPhone in Russia.
Many analysts and people familiar with the industry are expecting the third company of the big three – Mobile Telesystems (MTS) - to join in.

MegaFon gave no details about the deal it reached with Apple. Both companies declined to reveal the future price of the iPhone 3G in Russia.

The iPhone 3G wasn’t officially launched on the Russian market, but the handsets were available anyway on the “gray” market at a price nearing as much as $1,000. Many Russians purchased the handsets from abroad as tourists and paid an extra $100 to unlock the phones.

About 500,000 earlier-generation iPhones were sold in Russia, a fact which makes it one of Apple’s biggest markets for the handset. Imagine what success the “I Am Rich” application would have had here. In Ukraine, for example, President Viktor Yushchenko was seen using an iPhone and many regard the handset as a sign of wealth. However, it seems quite unbelievable that a country president would need an iPhone in his hand just to make sure nobody forgets his social status (or not?).

However, Russian dealers may find the task of selling iPhones rather difficult. The main reason would be the fact that iPhone users in Russia will be able to use only one network.

"Typically Russian operators are not strong handset sellers, and users prefer to buy handsets separately from their mobile contracts," said Konstantin Belov, a telecoms analyst at UralSib, The Associated Press reported.

"But the iPhone is very popular, and if mobile operators start subsidizing it, they will probably see strong demand."

MTS has about 91 million mobile phone subscribers; VimpelCom has around 51 million, while MegaFone has nearly 30 million.