Do you have a source? It’s a reasonable assumption, but I had not come across the statement so clearly before, and it’s not in the Jolla press release.
On a lighter tone, here’s the face of the 3 part time Jolla employees who did volunteer to assemble the Jolla phones, when learning, back to office after christmas holidays, that the preorders are up to…7000 :
MITÄÄÄÄÄ?!?
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I think they will use completely different word xD
(unless Jolla will hire more people)
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It has been quoted that Jolla said that from 7000 devices is where they start making money. As we’re reaching that number, we can discuss it a bit. I tend to over-interpret everything, so you’re warned.
The Jolla staff seemed to think their pre-order of 2700 phones to their manufacturer would be sufficient for a first batch, targeting 2000 right now, and some additional sales later on. They seemed unprepared (they did not have a plan ready) to pre-order a second batch of 2100 (which they negotiated in emergency with their manufacturer), and the current third batch of 5200. If they had expected they could sell that much, they would have launched it from the beginning with 3 thresholds, more round numbers (maybe 2000+3000+5000, but not 2700+2100+5200), and communicated the 3 prices from the start so everybody knows in advance, like it’s usual on places like Kickstarter.
My hypothesis is that it is unlikely that the amount of 7000 would be strictly speaking where they make money, in the sense of break-even. Because that would have been extremely unwise to launch a campaign to sell 2000 devices while losing money, and not even consider opening the possibility for more devices to be open for sale until they get back their money.
So I think the 7000 number is not break-even, or it depends on what they put inside. Maybe with 2000 devices, it pays back the parts and the manufacture costs, so they don’t directly lose money, and it keeps Jolla “existing” (being talked about in the media and doing useful things). At 7000, it pays back the investment in time of the entire team that was involved with the preparation work (that were already paid by Jolla through some other funding they have) and the expected after-sale support.
Another way to say it, is 7000 is the amount where it starts making sense for a company to engage into this. With an additional 5000 devices over what they initially thought for this step, and assuming 100 € additional profit on each, they collected half a million euros. That’s what I mean by “it starts making sense”. They can hire or assign their existing staff to dedicate to the project, and maybe they have some margin to play a bit with the hardware or software features they can implement.
I went through this just to say I think they now can afford hiring a few more temporary workers for the assembly (if they even hire, maybe it’s all sub-contracted).
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What sort of qualifications could be required for assembly?
Not exactly qualifications, but if I advertised for the job, I would write “detail-oriented” and “experience with electronics is a plus”.
A lot of people can’t see very well or are clumsy with their hands, or lack the necessary patience. Given the choice, I’d have a positive opinion of a former employee in textile sector (e.g. manufacturing clothes with a sewing machine precisely and quickly), but not necessarily from a former worker of heavy industries.
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Apologies if this has already been asked, but since a 3.5mm headphone jack was the second-most voted-for feature in the community poll, is there still a chance that the J2 could ship with one?
I would love to pre-order the phone right now but since the C2 already has the 3.5mm jack, the J2 would feel like a massive downgrade, as someone who listens to a lot of music.
Answer is unfortunately no. Jolla has explained that as they have to build the phone from off the shelf stuff they couldn’t make it work with headphone jack. Let’s hope there will be TOH that can fulfil that need for those that need it.
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I would love the same thing! But if we think about smartphone, wouldn’t operating system being even more critical part? That is the part which handles all of our data basically these days. Regarding the hardware, I am not aware of any European company anymore manufacturing consumer grade smartphone components. Do you know any? I think that makes it hard to made phone from EU sourced parts + would bring so big additional cost that most users wouldn’t want to pay it I am afraid
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5 posts were split to a new topic: Discussion about Türkiye
Yes, that’s why SailfishOS exists for Sony devices.
And actually the biggest privacy issue with hardware is the modem. In most cases it has closed-source firmware and always acts as a separate device.
There is NXP manufacturing CPUs, but… just look at Purism devices using it
Expensive and worse than something like even Helio G99
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I think so too and I am so grateful that this great project exist!
Cool! Didn’t know this, thank you for the hint! I would have betted that bang for Euro is currently much smaller than with something made in Asia but I think it’s great that someone is doing it. But there is room for improvement after they exist 
We are at 7000 pre-orders
Sadly at this rate we wont hit the 10k at the end of January 
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I hope this isn’t the end for the TOH idea as a whole. maybe later on down the line, it can be brought back? it’s a shame that all this hype has been built and it could be that nothing comes of it…
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Those who are still considering whether to buy or not, may be tempted to buy in the last week of the campaign due to FOMO, and give significant a boost to sales at the end of the campaign. However, this will likely not be enough to reach 10000 units sold without a little additional advertising from Jolla and promotion from the community.
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Might also be that after the talked referral program is published we see some jump in sales. But hopefully timeline can be pushed at least over FOSDEM. I would guess as we are so close already and there definitely is interest towards the phone that they make it possible to launch TOH later on. At least I dream so
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Being familiar with the noble art of using a small sized torx-screwdriver.
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Jolla said the project is profitable at about 7000 units so this is a big milestone.
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Was it before the ram prices increased ?
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That is if you assume Jolla will use DDR5/DDR5X ram. They just say 12gb of RAM so It could very well be something older, slower and not affected by the price increase.
As far as I remember they will reveal everything in a couple of months before they ask for the full payment.
So let’s hope that they offer enough to convince people to actually commit and not ask for a refund!
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