Samsung’s Note 7 exchange program is off to a slow start. The man, who asked not to be identified by name, said the telephone started to heat up and vibrate late on Saturday night, then exploded and emitted black smoke.
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The South Korean tech giant said it was not able to investigate a second reported fire because it could not obtain that phone. That account gave no contact information for the user or details of where the person lives.
Samsung also urged customers to not wait for a new device and instead power down the phone and return it to the place of purchase.
In fact, in a speed test to open a series of apps, one at a time, including tasks like loading games, the iPhone 7 laps the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 by opening all of the apps twice in the amount of time it takes Samsung’s handset to do it once.
An ATL official confirmed to Reuters one of its batteries was in the Note 7 phone that reportedly caught fire and that the heating problem was caused by something other than the battery.
The incidents could set back Samsung’s effort to stage a comeback in China, where it has slipped to No. 6 in a crowded market behind ambitious local brands, said Nicole Peng of research firm Canalys. The chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission was more explicit when his agency announced an official recall on Thursday.
The company has also kicked off its exchange program in which it will swap any potentially unsafe Note 7s sold from early batches for safe devices.
The world’s largest maker of mobile phones recalled 2.5-million units of its top-of-the-range model more than two weeks ago, after batteries began catching fire while charging.
Samsung is recalling 1,858 Note 7 phones in China, according to a notice dated September 14 from the country’s product quality agency.
But with only a trickle of customers visiting stores in Seoul on Monday for their replacements, the fate of the much-hyped handset remained unclear, although consumers in the South Korean capital were sympathetic. The company said the two reports of fires were not from that batch.
The company’s battery crisis, which has forced it to recall all early shipments of the Note 7, was caused by internal pressure to beat Apple to the launch of the newest iPhone.
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McDonald reported from Beijing.
