Despite starting 2016 on a strong note with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, executives at Samsung probably aren’t going to be thrilled with the year as a whole. Of course, that’s mostly due to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 battery fiasco which resulted in a recall of millions of units all over the world and is set to cost the company more than a billion dollars, not to mention the currently hard to asses damage to the brand. For those who fell off the grid a month ago, the Galaxy Note 7 had been shipping with batteries which for some, had a tendency to catch fire or explode while charging. As Samsung SDI was initially responsible for manufacturing batteries for 70% of Note 7 shipments, Samsung had no other choice but to issue an almost worldwide recall of the device and start offering replacement units.
Not surprisingly, some consumers who paid top money for their latest flagship device weren’t too happy with the whole ordeal and aren’t interested in replacing their possibly faulty and unsafe Galaxy Note 7 model with a functioning one. According to the latest survey conducted by SurveyMonkey, only 18% of questioned Note 7 buyers stated they’ll stick with their choice and simply replace the phone with a new one once they’re able to. On the other hand, 35% of surveyed Note 7 owners asserted that they are getting a refund and aren’t giving the phone a second chance while more than a quarter of interviewees said that they’ve decided to get an iPhone instead.
While this obviously isn’t great news for Samsung, it’s worth noting that any potential fears of global customer outrage still aren’t confirmed as SurveyMonkey had only polled 507 Americans who purchased the device and therefore, the results of the aforementioned survey are based on a relatively small sample of consumers. In other words, these findings are obviously far from conclusive and not everyone believes that Note 7 battery issues will have long-term consequences for the South Korean company. For example, it was only a few days ago that Sprint’s very own CEO downplayed the Note 7 recall by asserting that “stuff like this happens” and claiming that everyone will forget about the ordeal in the next six months.