THE WORLD’S BIGGEST smartphone maker Samsung has blamed faulty batteries for the fires that hit its flagship Galaxy Note 7 device last year, as it sought to draw a line under the humiliating recall.
Samsung Electronics was forced to discontinue the smartphone, originally intended to compete with Apple’s iPhone, after a chaotic recall that saw replacement devices also catching fire.
The debacle cost the South Korean company billions in lost profit and reputational damage, during a torrid period when it has also been embroiled in a corruption scandal that has seen President Park Geun-Hye impeached.
Internal and independent investigations “concluded that batteries were found to be the cause of the Note 7 incidents”, Samsung said in a statement.
“We sincerely apologise for the discomfort and concern we have caused to our customers,” Koh Dong-Jin, the head of its mobile business, said bowing before hundreds of reporters and cameramen at a press conference in Seoul.
Samsung Electronics is the most prominent unit of the giant Samsung group, South Korea’s largest conglomerate with a revenue equivalent to about a fifth of the country’s GDP.
It announced a recall of 2.5 million units of the oversized Galaxy Note 7 in September 2016 after several devices exploded or caught fire, with the company blaming batteries from a supplier, widely believed to be its sister firm Samsung SDI.
When replacement phones – with batteries from another firm, largely thought to be Chinese manufacturer ATL – also started to combust, the company decided to kill off the Note 7 for good.
As many as 1.9 million of the phones were sold in the United States, where authorities banned the device from use on planes and even from being placed in checked luggage. Airlines around the world issued similar prohibitions.
The firm has since embarked on a campaign to restore its battered reputation, issuing repeated apologies and putting full-page advertisements in prominent US newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post admitting that it “fell short” on its promises.
Analysts said that Samsung was looking to move on from the debacle with the announcement, which did not implicate other devices.
“Consumers tend to be forgiving the first time,” said Tom Kang, research director at Counterpoint Technology.
But if it happens again, it will leave a lasting mark on Samsung’s quality and brand image.
Samsung had concentrated on innovative design, thinness and battery capacity rather than safety, he said.
The firm’s next model, the Galaxy S8, had been expected to be unveiled at next month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but Samsung’s Koh said it would be delayed to ensure that it had no safety issues.
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