Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, responded in an interview to the disappointing sales of his company’s smartphone. Unleashed crypto on December 5.
The company unveiled its Android smartphone Saga in June 2022 and launched the device in 2023. The company wanted to provide users with a device tuned for web3. Specifically, it promised an app store separate from the Google and Apple app stores to circumvent those companies’ restrictive cryptocurrency policies.
In the interview, host Laura Shin highlights Saga’s “disappointing” sales, noting that only 2,500 phones were sold.
Despite the low sales, Yakovenko described positive feedback, saying:
“We worked with a third party, right… [it was] great to build this device, and I think it’s a very, very good device. We’ve gotten really good reviews from the people who got it. The Solana super fans loved it.”
Yakovenko added that Solana believed it would take 25,000 to 50,000 sales before other developers would feel compelled to ship applications.
Future unclear
When asked whether Solana will continue to make progress with mobile devices, Yakovenko suggested there is less need for such products. He noted that progressive web apps have reduced the need for dedicated devices and apps since mid-2022.
About future Solana devices, he said:
“…We really have to think about it and decide [whether there is] a place for almost a smart wallet, a much cheaper version that someone who is an iPhone user would use as a secondary device… but we didn’t see much signal [as to] whether it is attractive enough to sell 50,000 copies.
Shin also commented on one perceived vulnerability in Saga, reported by security company CertiK in November. Yakovenko denied there was a vulnerability, explaining that the security company had rooted the phone and showed a Bitcoin wallet that had been hacked. He suggested that this finding was partly irrelevant because the Solana stack “does not support Bitcoin.”
