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Snapchat reportedly has 'hundreds of thousands' of unsold Spectacles

Unlike snaps themselves, these won't disappear in short order.

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

Sure, they were a hot commodity when they first dropped, but almost a year later and Snapchat has "hundreds of thousands" of pairs of Spectacles sitting in Chinese warehouses. The news, via The Information, comes after CEO Evan Spiegel boasted that sales of the video-recording sunglasses had topped 150,000. Apparently execs were so enthused by how popular Spectacles were in their limited run, that the company ordered more and is left holding the bag now that demand has waned.

More than that, the move to buy drone-maker Zero Zero has fallen through according to the publication's sources. The reason? Its $200 million asking price. There's a chance, however, that the unsold inventory might not hurt the company. Unassembled parts could be upgraded or repurposed for new models, for instance. Maybe for now don't expect any crazy new hardware from the ephemeral social network, though.