The company are offering replacement models to anyone who has purchased the Galaxy Note 7 and estimate it will take about two weeks to begin swapping old Note 7s for new phones.
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Samsung, a giant South Korean company, said it had been alerted to 35 claims of faulty phones worldwide.
USA mobile networks sell the Galaxy Note 7 for at least $850. The AP reports that, according to Samsung, the Galaxy Note 7s sold in China used a different battery that wasn’t affected by the flaw.
Samsung said that it had conducted a “thorough investigation” and determined that there was a battery cell issue.
Since 30 August, Samsung’s share price has fallen from $737.50 to $715, a drop of around 5 percent.
Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung’s mobile division, told reporters the problem that caused the faulty batteries was hard to identify in quality control. No injuries have been reported.
The Galaxy Note 7 is Samsung’s brand new flagship smartphone, and so a huge recall like this is a big deal. Consequently, it had no choice but to issue a recall. Samsung said it would replace devices under warranty if it failed, but it declined to let customers swap phones otherwise or to issue a broader recall.
To date (as of September 1) there have been 35 cases that have been reported globally and we are now conducting a thorough inspection with our suppliers to identify possible affected batteries in the market.
“There was a tiny problem in the manufacturing process, so it was very hard to figure out”, Koh told reporters at a news conference.
“However, because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note 7”, read the statement.
The recall will be conducted over the coming days through Samsung and its sales partners.
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“If the exploded phone had burned near my head, I would not have been able to write this post”, she said in a popular online forum Thursday, where she shared a photo of the scorched Note 7 and described dousing the flames.
