Jolla kills its tablet, will ship just 540 more units

Finnish mobile firm Jolla has officially called it quits on its crowd-funded tablet and has announced it will ship just 540 units to backers.

At one point things were looking bright for the Finnish startup which launched its "Other Half" Sailfish handset in 2013 and then raised $2.5m from over 21,600 backers on an Indigogo that ended in September last year. It had since also taken pre-orders, but by November the company revealed it was running out of cash after failing to secure more financing.

At the time, Jolla couldn't say whether backers or customers would receive the tablet, and had only shipped a small batch of 121 units to early backers in October.

Jolla has now clarified that it will discontinue efforts to produce the tablet, blaming suppliers and its financial troubles for the outcome.

On Thursday Jolla said it will ship just 540 units to Indigogo backers at some point after February and plans to refund the total contribution to the remaining backers in two separate payments. It's promised to pay the first half during this quarter and the other half by the end of the year, pending its finances.

Customers who ordered the tablet will be refunded in full, according to Jolla.

Jolla chairman Antti Saarnio said the company was unable to continue producing the tablets in part due to the delayed financing it announced in November and claims its supplier "no longer has the needed components and many of them are no longer available."

Saarnio also addressed questions about Jolla tablets fans discovered in December were being sold at a Chinese e-commerce site.

"Jolla as a company has nothing to do with these devices - please note that these devices are not running Sailfish OS, but Android. We continue to investigate this matter," said Saarnio.