Galaxy Note 7 may have been permanently discontinued earlier this month, but the aftermath of this fiasco is still going strong. Samsung is now facing issues on multiple fronts, and the company is in full damage control mode. However, before it can start rebuilding the Galaxy brand and all of the customer trust it lost during this ordeal, the tech giant must figure out what happened, i.e. what went wrong with the Galaxy Note 7. A fantastic smartphone turning into a portable fire hazard isn’t something that happens every day, so Samsung is now facing a difficult task of identifying the cause of this commercial disaster because it simply cannot afford to repeat the same mistake with the upcoming Galaxy S8.
That’s exactly why the company recently halted Galaxy S8 development and is now refocusing all of its efforts on the ongoing investigation. The increased efforts are obviously necessary because Samsung already made a huge mistake back in September when it confidently announced that it has managed to eliminate the original battery cell defect and reassured the general public that replacement units of Galaxy Note 7 are completely safe. When the opposite turned out to be true, industry experts were quick to claim that potential long-term consequences of this fiasco more than doubled. Samsung is now facing pressure from both investors and consumers alike, not to mention the fact that consumer protection agencies worldwide also aren’t thrilled with the South Korean tech giant.
Earlier today, the company announced that it’s overhauling its quality assurance practices as a direct response to the Galaxy Note 7 ordeal. In addition to that, Samsung executive J.K. Shin now also revealed that the smartphone maker is expanding the scope of its investigation into this fiasco, Reuters reports. More specifically, Shin asserted that Samsung would look into every aspect of Galaxy Note 7 development, from research and software to hardware, manufacturing, and quality assurance. Speaking at a shareholder meeting held in Seoul earlier today, Samsung’s official also stated that 1.47 million of Galaxy Note 7 replacement units were sold worldwide, 119 of which were reported to catch fire. The company managed to obtain 90 of them and has confirmed that 55 were indeed defective, 16 weren’t, and the rest are still being investigated. While no specific details on the ongoing investigation have been given, the South Korean tech giant reiterated that it’s closely cooperating with independent experts and government agencies in order to get to the bottom of this mess.