After reading Will Oremus’s blog, I felt very intrigued by his topic as I’ve always had an interest in the mobile phone industry. The industry’s made huge steps in technological advancements in the last decade and it has brought significant changes to the market. A decade ago there were many key players in the phone industry that included, Motorola, Blackberry, Sony Ericson, Nokia and many more. However, in recent times there have been two main super powers leading the pack that have dismantled most of the competition, Apple and Samsung. These two key players have revolutionized the way smart phones are viewed today and they are continuously improving new ways to make more efficient products for the consumer.
In 2008 Apple released the IPhone 3G in 22 countries, most of the competition had no idea what was about to hit them. Samsung realized Apple was taking the market and wasn’t going to allow that, so they had to step in. Over the following years Apple and Samsung were revolutionizing the industry every year by releasing a newer and better product in effort to beat the competitor. This was until recent times with the excitement of Apple and Samsung releasing their newest line up in 2016. The Note 7 was Samsung’s newest addition to their arsenal and was rumored to give Apples marginally updated IPhone 7 a run for its money. However, when the Note 7 released in September the fiasco began. Hundreds of Note 7’s were experiencing battery issues and failures and in some cases they were even lethal. This was caused by the lithium ion battery packs that power the phone which contain very highly flammable liquid inside of them. If the battery was to short circuit, the liquid inside heats up and once hot enough can explode. This case is similar to the Hover boards that were exploding and catching fire because of a similar battery.
This situation has been a nightmare for Samsung as they were forced to recall the Note 7 and begin producing replacement models that were said to be produced by a different battery supplier. Unfortunately, the replacement phones had similar problems and Samsung had no other decision but to shut down production.
This has affected Samsung in a significant way and has allowed the competition to move ahead of them. Apple’s IPhone 7 has lost its main competitor in the 2016 mobile phone industry, which is very beneficial to them. Also, this may affect Samsung’s other products as consumers may not feel safe using Samsung products. It’s questionable whether Samsung’s customers will stay loyal to the company and use replacement Samsung devices, or move apart from the Company and switch to alternate brands.
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Blog: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/10/11/how_the_samsung_galaxy_note_7_s_exploding_batteries_will_change_the_smartphone.html
Sources:
https://www.cnet.com/news/why-is-samsung-galaxy-note-7-exploding-overheating/
