Almost a million phones in the US affected after 92 reports of batteries overheating, 26 people burned and 55 pieces of property damaged.
Advertisement
The recall is unprecedented in scale for the world’s top smartphone maker, which prides itself on its manufacturing prowess.
One family in St. Petersburg, Florida, said a Galaxy Note 7 left charging in their Jeep had caught fire, destroying the vehicle.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a safety advisory Friday, reminding airlines and passengers that federal regulations prohibit transporting lithium-ion batteries that are defective or have been recalled. Sales and use of Note 7s kept growing, however, according to Apteligent, which measures smartphone usage day by day by monitoring mobile apps when they’re opened on individual phones and ping the internet.
Samsung formally announced the recall of about 1 million Note 7 devices on Thursday in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), but the commission criticised the company for trying to initiate a recall on its own instead of following proper reporting procedures.
People who bought the phone did so to get the best possible quality and service, he said, adding that the handling of the recall “kind of seems like a strike on both counts”.
The battery issues with the Galaxy Note 7 may have made many customers look for alternative devices. The 23-year-old said he’s now using an old phone borrowed from a friend, which he said was “really impractical”.
Advertisement
Some 2.5 million of the premium devices worldwide need to be recalled, Samsung said. “Passengers must also protect the devices from accidental activation, including disabling any features that may turn on the device, such as alarm clocks, and must not pack them in checked luggage”. According to Samsung, new devices will be available at most retail locations no later than September 21. About 97 percent of phones sold in the USA are being recalled.
