As of Tuesday, October 11, Samsung has permanently stopped the production and sale of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after failing to implement the fix for the devices exploding and catching fire. The news broke out following Thanksgiving on Tuesday when the electronics giant made the announcement.
“Taking our customer’s safety as our highest priority, we have decided to halt sales and production of the Galaxy Note 7”
said the spokesperson for the Korean company. Following the sale of the smartphone back in August, dozens of reports flooded social media chronicling the unsafe nature of the phone which explodes and catches on fire due to battery overheating.
Faulty Replacements
Samsung was forced to recall millions of units and issued replacement phones instead but the embarrassment faced by the company only amplified when the replacement units also caught fire.
The device manufacturer issued an advisory to all customers and urged them to stop using the phones. The customers will be able to exchange their Galaxy Note 7 for another phone starting this week and the exchange program will run till the end of the year at least. Several telecom companies including AT&T had already stopped offering Note 7 to their customers.
This has been such a shame because the device was critically acclaimed and loved by people all over. The sleek and powerful premium device kept the audiences excited before its launch just a short while ago.
Going Forward
The move caused Samsung’s shares to tumble as investors became nervous about Samsung’s reputation with its customers and the company suffered their biggest decline of 8% in the recent years. Financial analysts are already predicting Samsung’s losses to reach $9.5 billion in lost sales and investors are gearing up to suffer heavy losses.
Many prominent analysts are suggesting that Samsung might even abandon the Galaxy Note series altogether citing that their flagship S series already outsells Galaxy Note devices.
Seems like Google’s Pixel was released just in time to fill the void left by this quarter’s smartphone release. People have been more than satisfied with Google’s Nexus series in the past. It will be interesting to see if Pixel manages to build a similar relationship with the avid android users.
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