10 October 2016, USA :
Samsung Electronics Co. has temporarily suspended production of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, an official at a supplier for Samsung said Monday, Amidst several incidents of some Note 7 replacements have caught fire, this was bound to happen.
Samsung started selling the Note 7 in South Korea on Aug. 19 but announced a global recall of 2.5 million units earlier last month following reports of some of the devices catching fire while being charged. It has encouraged owners of the Note 7 to swap their devices with new ones, but media reports said some new Note 7s in the U.S. and Taiwan have also caught fire as Yonhap News Agency reported.
In a statement Monday in Seoul, Samsung said that it was “temporarily adjusting the Galaxy Note 7 production schedule in order to take further steps to ensure quality and safety matters,” without elaborating.
Samsung told TechCrunch, “We continue to move quickly to investigate the reported case to determine the cause and will share findings as soon as possible.” Earlier today, as stories involving a number of other malfunctioning began to appear, the company added that “We are working diligently with authorities and third party experts and will share findings when we have completed the investigation.”
While talking to BBC, Eric Schiffer, a brand strategy expert at Reputation Management Consultants, said the company needed to take action to limit the harm to its image. “If the Note 7 is allowed to continue, it could lead to the single greatest act of brand self-destruction in the history of modern technology,” he said.
