Galaxy Note 7 UPDATE: Samsung Announces Global Recall and the End of Production

Samsung News: Global Recall Kills Galaxy Note 7 

All owners of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 are being instructed to immediately power down their smartphones—this time for good. The company announced a worldwide recall on Tuesday and the end of their flagship line. The announcement comes just five weeks after Samsung recalled 2.5 million Note 7s because of the battery potentially bursting into flames. At least 97 accounts of the smartphone exploding have been reported, along with 55 claims of property damage and 26 incidents of burns.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Note 7 in August 2016 to rave reviews. Experts said that the Note 7 was the most advanced consumer smartphone ever manufactured. Some detractors claim that Samsung rushed the smartphone out to beat Apple to market, whose iPhone 7 has been the main beneficiary of the Note 7 fiasco. Either way the worldwide recall and halt of production is unprecedented in the history of consumer electronics.

Initially, Samsung believed that the defect was contained to the batteries made at their subsidiary, Samsung SDI. The 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s recalled in the beginning of September all had SDI batteries and were replaced. Samsung claimed, as recently as last week, that all of the Note 7s outside of the 2.5 million recalled were safe, despite several alleged incidents of exploding Note 7s in China that were not part of the recall and did not have SDI batteries.

Replacement Phones Exploding

But then last week the replacements started to burst into flames as well. At least 5 replacement Note 7s with non-SDI batteries have exploded in the last 7 days, including Brian Green’s. He was in a Southwest Airlines flight from Louisville to Baltimore when his replacement Note 7 exploded in his pocket and forced an evacuation of the plane before takeoff. (Fortunately, no one was harmed.) These new revelations point to a defect in the phone, not the battery.

After the long weekend, Samsung, still unable to identify the cause of the explosions, announced, “For the benefit of consumers’ safety, we stopped sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7 and have consequently decided to stop production.” Samsung shares plummeted 8% on Tuesday, which is the company’s largest daily dip in almost a decade.

Consumers who own a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 are being directed to their point of purchase for a full refund or a different Samsung phone.

For more information- www.samsung.com/us/note7recall

Attorney Frank Melton of Newsome Melton on lithium batteries