YotaPhone: the dual-screen e-ink phone that talked itself to death

YotaPhone was a Russian smartphone with a novel pitch: a colour LCD on the front and a power-sipping e-Ink display on the back, so users could read books, notifications and maps on a screen that almost never drained the battery. The first YotaPhone launched in December 2012, pitched at an international market that had never heard of a Russian phone brand.

The pitch travelled better than the product. The first two YotaPhones together sold roughly 75,000 units — a niche even by the standards of a niche phone. YotaPhone 2 failed to ship to the US in 2015 despite exceeding its Indiegogo crowdfunding goal, and in late 2016 Yota pulled out of Russia and Europe entirely, shifting operations to China. YotaPhone 3 sold only in China despite promises of wider release.

The end came through the supply chain. Manufacturer Hi-P Singapore sued Yota for $126 million in 2015 after Yota refused to take delivery of — and pay for — the minimum phone order it had agreed to. Hi-P later agreed to settle for $17 million, but that deal fell through. A liquidation notice was published in the Cayman Islands Gazette in April 2019: Yota Devices, hamstrung by an inventory commitment it could not honour because nobody was buying, was declared bankrupt.