Samsung Kills Galaxy Note 7 Phone

Samsung is killing its Galaxy Note 7 phone after failing to find the cause of spontaneous explosions many users have reported around the globe.

The company has published consumer guidance for the Galaxy Note 7, urging customers to exchange their current Galaxy Note 7 for a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 Edge and offering to replace any Galaxy-Note-7-specific accessories with a refund of the price difference. Customers can also contact their point of purchase to obtain a full refund.

"Samsung has received 92 reports of the batteries overheating in the U.S., including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, including fires in cars and a garage," according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Initially Samsung blamed faulty batteries by a supplier for the explosions and started a recall program. The bad news started pouring in when the replaced phones, supposedly with a different battery from a different vendor, also started catching fire. Just recently, a US flight had to be cancelled when a Galaxy Note 7 onboard started to smoke.

It appears Samsung still doesn't know why this phone is exploding, and that could be bad news for the Korean giant.

Samsung said in a statement to media, "For the benefit of consumers' safety, we stopped sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7 and have consequently decided to stop production."

But the lack of a known cause could have a long-lasting impact on the trust of Samsung's customers. If Samsung had managed to carry out the recall correctly and identified the actual cause of explosion, they would be in a better position to compete for future business.

The Guardian quotes Richard Windsor, an analyst at the Edison Investment Research, "As long as Samsung carried out the recall smoothly and kept users very happy, the issue would eventually blow over. Unfortunately, this is very far from the case, and the fact that Samsung appears to be still shipping defective devices could trigger a large loss of faith in Samsung products."