As I’m sure you may have heard, Samsung has been having some trouble with it’s new smartphone, the Galaxy Note7. The newest addition to their line of smartphones is exploding, and not exploding as in flying off the shelves exploding, but literally bursting into flames.
So what’s going on exactly? According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, “the lithium-ion battery in the Galaxy Note7 smartphones can overheat and catch fire, posing serious fire and burn hazard to consumers.” There have also been at least 96 reports of batteries overheating in the US, with injuries and damage of property resulting from many of the fires.
In the US, the Department of Transportation has even gone so far to ban all Samsung Galaxy Note7 phones from airplanes, effective October 15th. They consider it to be a “forbidden hazardous material” and if passengers attempt to board a flight while in possession of a Note7, they will absolutely be denied boarding. While some people may be upset by this ban, it’s important to note (see what I did there?) that it is ultimately being put in place to ensure the safety of all passengers while they are traveling.
So what’s happening over at Samsung? They initially recalled the Galaxy Note7 on September 15, with another recall announced on October 13. On October 11, Samsung finally suspended the manufacturing and sale of the phone. Up until that date, Samsung was still selling and promoting the Note7 on the homepage of their website, even with all of the known safety hazards and media storm surrounding the “explosions”.
Why would Samsung continue to sell a phone that is obviously problematic? First of all, stopping production and banning the sale of their newest product would be admitting to the fact that it is harmful to users and that there is no way to remedy the situation. If you currently own a Note7, Samsung is offering you the choice of a full refund or a replacement device. Think about how much this is costing them. According to the CPSC, about 1.9 million devices were sold, each retailing at about $850. That’s roughly 1.6 billion dollars in losses, not including the amount of money that they would have been put into developing the product in the first place and marketing it.
Not only is Samsung losing billions of dollars from this mishap, but their brand as a whole is taking a huge hit (or might I say, going up in flames?). How are people going to react when the next Samsung smartphone rolls out? Are they going to want to buy a phone from the company whose last product caught fire and was banned from being brought on airplanes? I don’t think so. And with the recent releases of the iPhone 7 and Google Pixel smartphones, Samsung is probably losing a lot of their customer base as they search for a more reliable device.
And like everything else in the news recently, the Internet has taken this and made it into a joke! On Facebook, Dose posted a live video of a Galaxy Note7 that they bought off Craigslist and posed the question, “how long until it explodes?” The video was 4 hours long and so far has collected over 5.7 million views. If you want to watch this super eventful and noteworthy video, here’s the link.