TIL Desk/Business/Seoul-The world’s biggest smartphone maker Samsung blamed faulty batteries today for the fires that led to last year’s humiliating recall of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 device. Internal and independent investigations “concluded that batteries were found to be the cause of the Note 7 incidents”, the South Korean company said in a statement.
The giant conglomerate was forced to discontinue the smartphone — originally intended to compete with Apple’s iPhone — after a chaotic recall that saw replacement devices also catching fire. The debacle cost the company billions in lost profit and reputational damage.
“We sincerely apologise for the discomfort and concern we have caused to our customers,” Koh Dong-Jin, the head of Samsung’s mobile business, told reporters in Seoul.
Samsung acknowledged that it provided the specifications for the batteries, adding in its statement: “We are taking responsibility for our failure to ultimately identify and verify the issues arising out of battery design and manufacturing.
