Samsung aims to resume Galaxy Note 7 sales across Europe by late November

Samsung wants to resume sales of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 across Europe before the end of this year.

The company has decided not to sell the new Note 7 until the completion of exchange of existing units. Samsung sold an estimated 2.5 million Note 7s before it issued a global recall notice due to an isolated battery problem that caused some of the devices to explode while charging.

The company has decided to resume Note 7 sales in South Korea on 28 September. In Singapore and Australia, the sales would resume in October.

"We fully expect (new Note7s) to be available everywhere by the end of November ... well before the end of the fourth quarter," David Lowes, Samsung's chief marketing officer in Europe, told Reuters.

"We will be looking at the shape of our business and the forecast for that over the coming weeks," he added.

"We are confident that we can start to make up any ground that we have lost and get that momentum back into our business... get that total momentum back as we exit 2016 and set ourselves up for a strong 2017."

Along with the exchange programme, Samsung is taking additional security measures. It has pushed out a software update in Europe to all new Note 7 units to limit the battery charge to 60%.

Besides, Samsung is encouraging users to exchange their devices as soon as possible with the new ones, although the exchange programme varies according to markets. In the UK, Samsung is working with mobile network operators and retail outlets. In Germany, the company has reached out to consumers directly, offering the device through a courier service.

The exchange process, Lowes hopes, would be completed within two weeks. "Our mindset is to be expediting this over that time period and not have it continuing and continuing."

He said the phone still has strong demand in Europe although the device is yet to become available in many European markets, after it went on sale in select markets in August this year.