Samsung was previously known as one of the top smartphone providers in the world. Currently, Samsung is all over the news due to their newest smartphone, the Galaxy Note7. Unfortunately, this was not the publicity Samsung was expecting when they released the phone in August. As stated in Mike Fenato’s Blog, Samsung recently issued a worldwide recall of “2.5 million Galaxy Note7 smartphones whose faulty batteries sparked a number of fires”. Mike’s blog post was very intriguing and convinced me to follow up with the most recent developments of the recall. It turns out, the Samsung situation has progressed even further.
To compensate consumers who purchased the faulty Galaxy Note7, Samsung offered them new Note7’s with batteries from a different supplier. This solution failed. Even the smartphones distributed due to the recall had reports of exploding batteries. On October 11th, with no further solutions in sight, Samsung decided to stop all production, and selling, of the Galaxy Note 7. Samsung’s website states that they will provide an “[e]xchange towards a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge device, [or] a refund for the Note7 device and Note7 specific accessories”. Brian X. Chen and Choe Sang-Hun of The New York Times see this decision as “highly unusual in the technology industry [because] companies tend to keep trying to improve a product rather than pull it altogether”. Based on a Reuters calculation, the termination of the Note7 will “equate to nearly $17 billion in lost revenue”.
In the smartphone industry, year after year, new phones are delivered to the market with incremental upgrades. Recently, the common points of differentiation to the ‘latest and greatest’ smartphones include improved resolution, larger screen size, and the quality of the camera. Smartphone producers tend to implement these upgrades into their phones slowly. They do not put all of their best technology into their newest phones all at once. They give their new phones small upgrades each year to ensure they never run out of new technology to add. If Samsung wants to gain back the trust, and interest, of their customers, small upgrades will no longer cut it. The next smartphone they produce must go above and beyond the current trends. Their next smartphone must be revolutionary.
Samsung’s recently recalled Galaxy Note7. Image Source
Sources:
Mike Fenato, “Samsung under Fire after Reports of Products “Exploding”“, UBC Blogs, Oct.2nd/2016
Why Samsung Abandoned Its Galaxy Note 7 Flagship Phone“, The New York Times, Oct.11th/2016
Samsung, “Samsung Canada Announces Return Process for Galaxy Note7 Devices“, Oct.12th/2016
“Note 7 fiasco could burn a $17 billion hole in Samsung accounts“, Reuters, Oct.11th/2016
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