C oup hard for Samsung: the South Korean electronics giant said Friday it would suspend sales of its new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7 and recall millions of copies after battery explosions.
He also postponed the launch of this product in several European countries including France, originally scheduled in September.
World number of smartphones before the US Apple is fighting to maintain its reputation while its rival is about to launch a new iPhone.
Since the end of August, users publish on social networks and photos Galaxy Note 7 videos whose screen appears completely charred. These users say their device caught fire spontaneously.
Challenged, Samsung Electronics has detected a failure. He announced that he would recall 2.5 million units sold worldwide, including the United States and South Korea, and offer new phones to those customers.
This is the first reminder large scale for a high-end smartphone from Samsung.
– Deeply sorry –
“We have received several reports of battery explosion Note 7 which was officially launched on 19 August,” told reporters the head of the mobile business of Samsung, Koh Dong-Jin. “We have confirmation that there is a battery problem,” he added.
He said that failure touched 24 devices on each million copies sold and two weeks it would take to prepare the recall.
“We are deeply sorry for causing trouble and inconvenience to some of our customers,” said Koh Dong-Jin.
the mobile division of Samsung accounted for the largest share of the group’s activity. But besides its rival Apple in the high end, it faces increasing competition from Chinese manufacturers like Huawei on more affordable models.
This reminder will deal a blow to the ambition of the South Korean exceed iPhone sales 7, said Lee Jang-Gyoon investigator economic think tank Hyundai Research Institute.
“Samsung has earlier market the Note 7 to ensure in advance a dominance, but the interest of this decision now seems limited, “said the analyst.
– impact on profits? –
Samsung Electronics uses batteries made by several vendors including Samsung SDI, part of the same group.
Koh declined to identify the supplier of the faulty battery. However, he said that its sales in China will not be affected because the supplier is not the same. Sales of Galaxy Note 7 started Thursday in China.
Samsung, South Korea’s group by market valuation, announced in late July a rise in net profit better than expected in the second quarter, thanks to strong sales of its high-end phones Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge and strong cost reductions.
the stock ended Friday up 0.6% following declines the previous two sessions. Thursday, Samsung had lost $ 7 billion of capitalization, as investors worried about the reputation of the group. According to one analyst who requested anonymity, the incident could “weigh heavily” on the results of third quarter.
But this opinion is not shared by Jeff Kim, an analyst at Hyundai Securities, for which the impact will be limited. “Technical failures affecting modules of a smartphone is often occurred in the past, usually in the first month after launch,” said he wrote in a Thursday note.
He estimated that such incidents could be resolved relatively quickly and that Samsung would be able to quickly resume sales of its product.
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