BATTERIES BLAMED
Samsung reveals causes of fires
Samsung says a thorough SEOUL investigation into the fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 phone has confirmed widely held suspicions that its batteries were to blame, marking a first but important step toward restoring consumer confidence.
Samsung announced tighter quality controls and more rigorous testing and took responsibility for failing to ensure that design specifications given to its suppliers were failsafe. The South Korean company was also delaying its next Galaxy phone, the Galaxy S8, which is usually announced in February. The spontaneous fires prompted Samsung to recall millions of phones and take a US$5.3 billion hit on its earnings — and an unknown amount in reputation.
While praising Samsung’s frankness and apologies, analysts question whether the world’s largest smartphone maker has really gotten to the bottom of the problem in blaming flaws in the design and production of batteries.
“Samsung said the weaknesses could make the phone prone to catch fire. That I understand, but what did trigger fires in such conditions? Did they discuss if there is another cause? No,” said Park Chul Wan, a former director of the next generation battery research centre at the state-owned Korea Electronics Technology Institute.
Forrester analyst Frank Gillett said the company’s emphasis seems to be on detecting problems in manufacturing, not preventing design problems earlier.
The company, he said, needs to find ways to prevent commercial pressures, such as getting a phone out quickly, from causing engineers to make bad decisions. Samsung’s Note 7 was timed, in part, to beat Apple’s iPhone 7 by weeks.
Ramon Llamas, an analyst at research firm IDC, said he would like to see Samsung show more of a“human side” to solving its problem and say what it’s doing to work with consumers affected by this.
Samsung introduced the Note 7 on Aug. 2 and weeks later recalled the first batch after reports emerged that the phones were overheating and in some cases exploding. After replacement phones also started catching fire, aviation officials banned them on flights and the firm dropped the product for good.
Samsung said the weaknesses could make the phone prone to catch fire. ... but what did trigger fires in such conditions?