Samsung to permanently stop production of Galaxy Note7
UPDATE: Oct. 11, 10:25 a.m. ET: Samsung provided the following statement to Mashable regarding the halt in production:
"For the benefit of consumers' safety, we stopped sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note7 and have consequently decided to stop production."
That's it, folks: After asking carriers to stop sales amid several reports of replacement Note7 devices bursting into flames, Samsung is now halting production of the phone altogether.
The news comes via Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, and the difference between yesterday's news is in the wording. On Monday, Samsung said it would "temporarily adjust" the production of the Galaxy Note7. Now, the company's move is permanent.
Samsung said in a regulatory filing Tuesday that it has made a final decision to stop production for the sake of consumer safety, the AP wrote Tuesday.
“Taking our customers' safety as our highest priority, we have decided to halt sales and production of the Galaxy Note 7,” said Samsung.
The news is not unexpected. A short timeline of Samsung's Galaxy Note7 woes tells the story.
The phone was officially launched mid-August to great reviews. But Samsung was forced to recall it globally in September after several dozen user reports that the phone was spontaneously catching fire. The replacement program started a week later, but some replacement devices that were supposed to be safe exhibited the same fiery behavior.
Over the weekend, major U.S. carriers halted the replacement program (which hasn't had time to even start in Europe), and that was all she wrote.
Samsung's next move is unclear at this point: It could try to rebrand the Note7 a little and quickly release an updated, fixed version, but that seems very unlikely at this point. It could also simply wait it out until its next flagship phones, likely called the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Edge, are launched -- current rumors point to a February 2017 launch but the company has not officially confirmed this.
Developing...
BONUS: What it takes to blow up a Samsung Note7
Topics Samsung
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
