The world’s top smartphone maker on Tuesday scrapped the $882 flagship smartphone in what could be one of the costliest product safety failures in tech history.
Samsung announced the recall of 2.5 million Note 7s in early September following reports of the phones catching fire. The firm appeared to have the situation under control as it issued replacement devices with different batteries, until the new phones also began to smoke and combust.
Investors and analysts agreed that the damage to Samsung’s brand and future earnings would deepen the longer the market was left in the dark about the origin of the fault, with some already predicting lost revenue in the region of $17 billion.
“It’s good that Samsung made a firm decision on the Note 7, but people are concerned about the situation because people don’t know what the problem is,” said Kim Hyun-su, a fund manager at IBK Asset Management, which owns shares in Samsung.
