Solana Mobile’s Journey to Break Even is Far From Over

Solana Mobile still has a long way to go until it hits breakeven Solana Labs co-founder teases possibility of third mobile deviceLast month, Solana Mobile’s flagship web3 smartphone, the Saga, sold out. Last week the Solana Labs’ subsidiary launched its second phone and got over 40,000 preorders in less than a week. “After Saga sold out, it felt like there’s an opportunity and the timing in the market was right,” Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, said on TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast. “The timing [for the new phone] worked out right around that moment.”And if the second device is a success, there will be a third phone launched later on, Yakovenko hinted. “I think crypto was going through a hard bear market, and the Solana ecosystem was feeling the worst of it,” Yakovenko said.

The road to success has been a bumpy one for Solana Mobile. Last month, the company’s web3 smartphone, the Saga, sold out. And just last week, they launched their second phone, receiving an impressive 40,000 preorders in just a matter of days. But according to Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of Solana Labs, this is just the beginning.

“After Saga’s success, it became clear that there was a promising opportunity in the market,” Yakovenko revealed on TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast. “And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.”

But the mobile company has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. In fact, Yakovenko teased the possibility of a third phone being launched in the near future. It seems that web3 mobile devices are not just a passing fad, but a potentially lucrative category for growth.

However, Solana Mobile’s journey to this point has been far from smooth sailing. The first Saga handset, launched in mid-2023 at a steep price of $1,000, saw little demand. In response, the company quickly lowered the price to $599, but still struggled to make an impact.

“I think during this time, the crypto market was facing a tough bear market and the Solana ecosystem was hit the hardest,” Yakovenko explained. “We were desperately trying to attract developers to launch on our platform and it felt like we were just trying to survive.”

Fortunately, things took a turn for the better when crypto users noticed that the dog-centric memecoin, BONK, was offering Saga owners 30 million tokens for free through their decentralized app (dApp). This was roughly equivalent to the price of the phone at the time and sparked a surge in demand.

“We were in survival mode during the chasm of despair, just waiting for the market to turn around,” Yakovenko admitted.

Clearly, Solana Mobile still has a long way to go before reaching breakeven. But with their recent successes, it seems they are on the right path towards establishing themselves as a major player in the world of web3 mobile devices. And who knows, with a third phone on the horizon, the sky may just be the limit for this up-and-coming company.