“Samsung has killed off the Galaxy Note 7 in the hope of limiting the fallout from its exploding smartphone fiasco,” Jethro Mullen and Mark Thompson report for CNN. “The South Korean firm decided Tuesday to permanently halt sales and production of the Galaxy Note 7 just hours after telling customers to stop using all versions of the smartphone. Its stock plummeted 8% in Seoul, wiping about $17 billion off the company’s market value.”
“It was forced to recall about 2.5 million Note 7s in early September, just two weeks after the phone was launched, saying faulty batteries were causing some to burst into flames,” Mullen and Thompson report. “It then started to issue replacement phones but a number of customers reported that those devices were also catching fire, including one aboard a passenger jet.”
“Top priority will be to establish what exactly went wrong. The company initially blamed problems with a battery from one supplier. Experts say they believe a design flaw may have been responsible,” Mullen and Thompson report. “Analysts say as many as two million devices may still be in use around the world… Analysts at Nomura estimate ditching the Note 7 could mean $9.5 billion in lost sales and wipe out $5.1 billion of profit.”
