Snap Inc., the company that owns and operates Snapchat, launched its first hardware product last year. Spectacles were meant to make it easier for people to share moments from their day on Snapchat. They were quite popular last year when they came out but the hype has since ended. According to a new report, the company is actually sitting on “hundreds of thousands” of unsold units because there’s no longer any demand for this product.
According to The Information, Snap expected that the demand will continue to persist after the holiday season last year so it ordered “hundreds of thousands” of additional units. However, after it opened sales to more people, the demand fell off a cliff. Snap has thus been left holding the bag. It has a mountain of unsold Spectacles collecting dust in warehouses.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said earlier this year that the company had sold more than 150,000 units of Spectacles. However, it’s unclear precisely how many units have been sold so far and by how much Snap over-ordered additional units. To be fair, The Information does mention that the figure also includes unassembled units with parts that could possibly be used in other products.
It’s unclear what this means for the future of Snap hardware. It’s unclear what the 150-person strong hardware team is working on right now. There have been reports that the company might be developing a drone but the report claims that Snap has given up on its drone program.
Filed in . Read more about Snapchat and Spectacles. Source: theinformation