If you are considering buying the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone in Nigeria perhaps you need to rethink as makers of the phone Samsung Electronics Co. halted sales of the product and asked consumers to stop using the ones they’ve already purchased in some parts of the world.
Following series of complaints over exploding batteries of replacement phones, the south Korean largest company had to take the decision and has been looking for ways to solve the crisis.
The crisis has left Samsung scrambling to figure out the cause of the battery fires and to explain how a company known for manufacturing expertise could have missed such a critical product flaw twice. Samsung originally blamed one battery supplier for the problems and switched to an alternative company, but it is now investigating the issue again.
“It must find the cause and clearly say what it will do about it,” Yoo Jong-woo, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities Co. told Bloomberg.
“That way customers won’t feel uneasy when buying other Samsung phones.”
The report also revealed that Samsung shares fell as much as 7.3 percent, the largest in a day drop in a month. The company has growing competition for customers shopping for premium smartphones as they head into the holiday shopping season. Apple Inc. just introduced its iPhone 7 and Google came out with its Pixel smartphone, which runs on the same Android software as Samsung’s devices.
Samsung’s announcement came after consumers reported problems with supposedly safe phones in the U.S. and China, and wireless carriers such as AT&T Inc. and Australia’s Telstra Corp. halted sales. In one case, a Southwest Airlines Co. flight from Louisville, Kentucky, was evacuated because a replacement Note 7 began dispersing smoke and burned carpet flooring.
Regulators in Korea and the U.S. have also requested that to halt the sales or exchange of the phones. “Due to the ongoing safety concerns associated with Galaxy Note 7 phones, it is the right move for Samsung to suspend the sale and exchange of all Galaxy Note 7s,” said Elliot Kaye, chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Samsung said Tuesday it is cooperating with the regulator on the probe.
With the sales halt spreading like wild fire, Africa may be next, but it is also advisable to heed to what is happening in other clime. Major Chinese e-commerce websites, including JD.com and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Tmall.com, withdrew the Note 7 from sale as of Tuesday.
The Note 7 debuted to rave reviews in August, but the plaudits turned to condemnation within weeks as phones exploded and images of charred handsets began appearing on social media. Samsung announced the initial recall in Korea on Sept. 2, recalling the initial shipment of 2.5 million phones and then replacing them with what it said were safe devices. The flaw, it explained, was with the primary battery supplier, which a person familiar with the matter identified as affiliate Samsung SDI Co. All new phones would have batteries from another manufacturer.
This will obviously affect the company in many ways. One is the competitive edged with Apple and the global smartphones. Secondly is in terms of profit while the company is yet to state how many new or replacement phones will be affected by the latest sales halt.
