The third-party distributor for Solana Mobile experienced inventory problems, which led to order cancellations and refunds for impacted clients.
The mobile tech startup Solana Mobile, which creates the Solana Mobile Stack and Saga, said in an X post on December 22 that a significant spike in demand for its Saga product led to sellouts in both the US and the EU.
But despite the excitement, the company, which only made 20,000 gadgets worldwide, is having trouble filling orders because of a problem with inventory management with a third-party distributor.
“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.”
The company cannot fulfill orders placed after the inventory was depleted due to inaccurate stock representation caused by the inventory problem. Furthermore, orders deemed suspect due to factors including excessive device numbers or payment risk were canceled, according to Solana Mobile.
Refunds are expected to be completed in the upcoming days, according to the company, which has alerted the customers affected by the cancellations.
Solana Mobile promised that their Saga devices are on their way to customers without a cancelation notification. The $1,000 Solana Saga is an Android smartphone with an IP68 rating that was unveiled in late October 2022. It has a 120Hz AMOLED screen, a 50MP primary camera, and up to 1TB of storage.
The blockchain security company CertiK published a video in mid-November 2023 that showed how to exploit a serious vulnerability on Solana’s flagship Saga phone.
According to the company’s analytics, the Solana Saga phone has a serious vulnerability, which might let hackers break into its software and take control of the device.
Steven Laver, the chief mobile software developer at Solana Labs, told the media shortly after the story broke that there are no security threats or known vulnerabilities for Saga owners in the video.
When Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko appeared on Laura Shin’s Unchained podcast in early December, he admitted that the smartphone’s future was dubious because of its underwhelming sales.
However, as soon as the BONK frenzy started, Solana’s cellphones sold out fast because Saga owners could get 30 million free BONK tokens, which at the time of writing were worth roughly $565.