Samsung is the preferred smartphone trafficker within the world, having boasted a worldwide market share of pure gold in Q1 2022, according to Canalys. This place it before Apple, which came in second place with a market share of eighteen, whereas Chinese company Xiaomi rounded out the highest 3 positions with a thirteen share. However, whereas it continues to carry a powerful lead on smartphone shipments globally, things nearly fell apart for the South Korean company with the launch of its Galaxy Note seven back in 2016. The model launched to tons of fanfare and we were affected by its winning combination of an oversized (for the time) five.7-inch Super AMOLED show, solid performance, beautiful style, and S-Pen. We tend to refer to like it as the most effective automaton of 2016
Unfortunately, very little did anyone grasp at the time of its launch that the Galaxy Note seven would become one of the foremost disreputable smartphone releases of all time, introducing a failure that may modify Samsung forever. we’ve all seen the problems which will arise with the lithium-ion batteries that power each smartphone on the market. If the battery gets broken from a drop or if an associate degree incorrect charger is employed with it, things will get ugly pretty quickly. Why? this kind of battery is vulnerable to combusting, catching fireplaces, and even exploding under such circumstances. Thankfully, however, in most instances, these occurrences are few and much between. That wasn’t the case for the Samsung Galaxy Note seven, however.
Explosive sales of explosive devices
When the Samsung Galaxy Note seven went on sale on August nineteen, 2016, it was a second hit for the corporate and sales exploded (via Korea Herald). However, it wasn’t too long before Galaxy Note seven units began to explode virtually, and shortly once the full Galaxy Note seven launch imploded. the primary report of a Galaxy Note seven combusting hit the news on August twenty-four, simply a couple of days once customers initially got the sought-after device in their hands. We’ve all detected the occasional report of a couple of random smartphones catching afire because of battery-related problems, however, at this point around it shortly became apparent there have been deeper issues with Samsung’s then-new Galaxy model. Multiple reports concerning the Note seven catching afire emerged around the globe.
In Sep 2016, Samsung declared a voluntary recall of the two.5 million Note seven smartphones that it had sold within the roughly period since it had gone on sale. the corporate damn faulty batteries for the matter and offered refunds or replacement devices. It wasn’t long before the U.S. client Product Safety Commission referred to as widespread attention to the formal recall (via CPSC), and things continued to travel from unhealthy to worse. On Oct five, a report surfaced a couple of Note seven heating on a U.S. flight — which was a retardant for over one reason. The incident concerned a replacement unit that had been equipped with a distinct battery. later, additional reports of Note 7s rising in smoke, as well as replacement devices, created the news. U.S. carriers set to prevent mercantilism of the model and provision replacement devices (via Recode).
A root cause analysis
With the writing on the wall, Samsung ultimately force the plug on Galaxy Note seven production in Oct 2016 Next began the inquiries into what precisely had gone wrong with what ought to be a triumphant product launch for the South Korean technical school big. To its credit, Samsung took its investigation of the problem seriously and, additionally to the victimization of its specialists, the corporate conjointly brought in freelance consultants to look at Note seven units and their batteries, further administrating Samsung’s inquiring processes.
As we tend to report at the time, Samsung’s investigation ultimately unconcealed the problems at the guts of the matter. within the initial instance, the corporate used 2 completely different suppliers for its batteries: one used for the initial shipments, and one used for the replacement devices. Incredibly, in each instance, the batteries from the 2 firms were found to be faulty. within the case of “Battery A” (made by Samsung SDI), its entrails might get compressed within the battery pouch causing the electrodes within the high right-hand corner of the battery to bend, Which might conjointly cause a probably dangerous contact. within the instance of “Battery B” (made by Ampere Technology), it featured what was delineated as abnormally high attachment burrs.
Biting off over it might chew
We later reported on a teardown of the Galaxy Note seven in December 2016 that showed Samsung’s fault aggressive style approach for the Note seven could have conjointly been an element in its dying. A want to form the device as skinny as potential meant that the batteries failed to have enough space to expand like normal; most smartphones incorporate a tolerance of a minimum of ten p.c of the battery size to accommodate for this. Inexplicably,
Undoubtedly, the Galaxy Note seven was a significant collapse for Samsung and undermined client trust on the whole. Newsweek noted at the time that a stigmatization Brands survey showed that thirty-four p.c of current Samsung customers would not get another Samsung phone — a minimum of in the past, though’ sentiments have probably modified within the years since. the corporate conjointly took a large monetary hit because of a forecast of nineteen million Note seven sales that virtually and figuratively went up in smoke this could have amounted to around $7 billion in revenue lost. Further, once the announcement that it had halted Note seven production, Samsung’s stock worth tanked by eight p.c, wiping $19 billion off its market cap at the time. though Samsung remains an undefeated company, the Galaxy Note seven can continually be a black mark on its storied history.
