Samsung wants users to stop using its exploding Galaxy Note 7 phones but has no plans to disable them remotely.
Advertisement
The South Korean company’s shares dropped more than 6% on Monday. Initial conclusions indicate an error in production that placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells. Samsung however stressed that it needed to carry out a more thorough analysis to determine “the exact cause” of battery damage. Samsung says the problem stems from a manufacturing glitch in the batteries.
It will damage Samsung’s reputation and likely hurt profits at a time when it is feeling the squeeze from Apple’s iPhone and Chinese rivals in the lower-end category. This flaming new feature of the Note 7 could, however, also effect the overall device sales of the company.
Samsung’s own SDI subsidiary had been the dominant battery supplier for the Note 7, supplying around 70 percent of the batteries globally, according to analyst estimates.
In Samsung’s case, faulty batteries caused some handsets to burst into flames during charging. Ma also mentioned the possibility of airlines banning all Samsung phones, not just the Galaxy Note 7, as it’s hard to tell some of the models apart.
Last week, The Federal Aviation Administration warned airplane passengers to avoid using their Galaxy Note 7 phones on flights, as well as to avoid packing them in checked luggage, Claman noted. They bounced back Tuesday, closing 4.2 percent higher in Seoul.
At the start of this month, Samsung had received reports of about 35 incidents involving the phone’s batteries.
Samsung plans to begin issuing new Note 7s with batteries it says will not be prone to overheating starting September 19 in South Korea.
“NJ Transit is urging our customers to do the responsible thing and heed the manufacturer’s advice to power down the Galaxy Note7”, said Gardner Tabon, chief of NJ Transit’s Office of System Safety.
That “eventually led to greater end-user faith in Johnson & Johnson’s products”, they wrote.
Advertisement
Still, the fight must go on and Samsung, against long odds, needs to find a way to prove to consumers it can regain their trust.
