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- Solana’s Saga smartphone has been in great demand in recent days, which led to the company selling more phones than it had in its inventory in the latest twist.
- Solana Labs has apologized and issued an apology on the snag and pledged to refund the aggrieved buyers, even as the SOL price continues to shoot.
Solana has been the hottest crypto project in the market over the past year, with SOL and other tokens in its ecosystem surging in prices, led by the Bonk meme coin. Its flagship Web3-native smartphone, Saga, has been the big beneficiary and has been flying off the shelves after a slow start to life in its first seven months. But with the great demand has come an inventory snag that has left some buyers without a phone despite prompt payments.
Saga is an Android smartphone by Solana Labs that comes fitted with blockchain and Web3 capabilities, including a crypto wallet. Launched in May, it failed to attract the level of interest originally envisioned despite being of industry-standard qualities. The lack of interest from the crypto community led Solana to slash the phone’s price, but still, by the start of December, they had only sold 2,000 units.
Then came Bonk’s meteoric rise, and the demand for Saga phones exploded, so much so that Solana ended up selling phones it didn’t have in its inventory.
In a statement on social media, Solana revealed that the sudden surge in purchase orders had overwhelmed one of the partners it was working with.
“In working to fulfill orders, we learned of an inventory management issue with our third-party distributor that resulted in an inaccurate representation of our inventory,” stated the company.
It added:
Given this, we are unfortunately unable to fulfill orders that were placed after inventory ran out. In addition, we canceled orders that were flagged for suspicious activity due to excessive device orders or payment risk, as we work to get Saga in the hands of as many users as possible.
Saga Demand Overwhelms Solana
As CNF reported, the sudden surge in demand for the smartphone stemmed from the rise in the price of the meme token Bonk and the free tokens that Saga owners received by owning the smartphone. The smartphone initially retailed below $500, but the tokens that owners received were worth over $800. As such, even if owners never used the smartphone, they would still make some quick bucks.
This demand pushed the price of the smartphone to $5,000 on eBay, which is over four times the price of the most premium iPhone.
In its statement, Solana pledged to refund the affected buyers.
Last week, we saw an overwhelming demand for Saga, with sellouts in both the US & EU on our limited inventory of 20,000 devices produced globally.
In working to fulfill orders, we learned of an inventory management issue with our third-party distributor that resulted in an…
— Solana Mobile 🌱 (@solanamobile) December 22, 2023
“Affected customers have been informed about their order cancellation and will be refunded in the coming days. We understand this is disappointing, and apologize for the inconvenience,” stated the project.
The company also revealed that some of the orders will be delivered late as it has been overwhelmed by the demand. While this is not new in the smartphone world, it could be problematic for buyers whose sole mission is to get the Bonk tokens as the price may have dipped by then—it has already shed 26% in the past week.
