Roma Angela Maun BSA-3C

Samsung says battery defects caused Galaxy Note 7 fires

Samsung Electronics has laid the blame for its exploding Galaxy Note 7
handsets on the devices’ batteries, pointing the finger at overheating caused by
design and manufacturing defects.Monday’s findings follow a three-month
investigation by the South Korean company and independent third parties into an
embarrassing debacle that is expected to cost the world’s largest smartphone maker
more than $5bn.Released to positive reviews last August, the Note 7 was recalled
and abruptly killed off within two months after several caught fire. The incidents
prompted US regulators and airlines globally to ban the smartphone on flights in a
highly publicised move that struck at the heart of the company’s reputation.Bowing
deeply before a packed auditorium in Seoul, Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung’s
mobile communications business, apologised on Monday for the fiasco. Ruling out
any issue with the smartphones’ software or other hardware, the company said:
“Our investigation, as well as investigations completed by three independent
industry organisations, concluded that the batteries were found to be the cause of
the Note 7 incidents”.
Samsung said the investigation involved 700 researchers conducting tests on
200,000 assembled phones and 30,000 additional batteries to determine the cause of
the fires, which it referred to simply as “incidents”.The probe found that, due to
design problems, the batteries did not fit squarely into their cell pouch. That caused
them to short-circuit, resulting in devices overheating and catching fire.
Replacement batteries from a separate supplier were then found to have
manufacturing defects, meaning they were also fire-prone.“We provided the target
for the battery specifications for the innovative Note 7, and we are taking
responsibility for our failure to ultimately identify and verify the issues arising out
of battery design and manufacturing,” the company said. “We have taken several
corrective actions to make sure this never happens again.” Shares in Samsung rose
2.3 per cent in Seoul.However, Mr Koh also said on Monday that the Galaxy S8
would not be released at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month — an
event typically used by the company to reveal its latest flagship smartphone —
suggesting the release of the device could be delayed.Ahead of the crucial release,
Samsung was at pains to demonstrate that its Note 7 findings were supported by
independent third parties.Two US companies, UL and Exponent, concurred that
abnormalities in batteries from two suppliers were at the crux of the issue. Neither
supplier was named, but it is known that affiliate Samsung SDI and Amperex
Technology, a subsidiary of Japan’s TDK, provided batteries for the Note 7.
The report was highly technical in nature and largely skirted concerns among
analysts and governance activists over the role played by Samsung’s corporate
culture, including the chasm between demands from executives and engineers’
capabilities. Kim Yong-serk, a former Samsung mobile engineer, said the company’s
“overambitious” attitude towards battery capacity and charging speeds caused the
incident, and would be addressed in the S8 device.“With their reputation on the
line, Samsung clearly investigated the cause of the fires in a very conservative and
cautious way, so I view its investigation as credible,” Mr Kim added.Despite the
debacle, Samsung this month forecast its best quarterly operating profit in more
than three years, projecting a 50 per cent surge for the last three months of 2016
thanks to strong sales of chips and display panels. The company is due to publish
detailed results on Tuesday.