Samsung halts Galaxy Note 7 production after replacement devices catch fire – report

Samsung has temporarily halted the production of the Galaxy Note 7 after several news reports claimed that some the replacement devices have caught fire. The flagship, which was already facing a recall, was being re-sold and exchanged for older devices that were reported to contain faulty batteries.

A Yonhap report citing an official at a supplier for Samsung says amid the reports of the new Note 7 explosions, the production is stalled temporarily. The decision is to comply with consumer safety regulators from South Korea, US and China.

"This particular measure includes a Samsung plant in Vietnam that is responsible for global shipments (of the Galaxy Note 7)," the official said.

The South Korean smartphone maker released the Galaxy Note 7 with much pomp and show in August only to be met with several explosion complaints days after shipping the device to consumers. The company ultimately declared a global recall of over 2.5 million units of the phone among which US and South Korea bore the largest volume.

After having cooperated with safety regulators all over the world the firm launched the replaced version towards the end of September, giving the new devices free of cost to those who owned the old faulty ones. However, a few days later reports started surfacing from China, Korea as well as the US of batteries still being faulty.

The first explosion post the recall took place in China, which the company claimed was due to external heating. Moreover, China never faced a mass recall as Samsung said the batch it shipped to the country consisted of batteries from ATL and were safe. Soon reports started coming in from South Korea, Taiwan and US with the most significant one being an explosion on the Southwest Airline in US.

It is not known what course Samsung will take now as major cellular operators in the US have already stopped giving out Note 7 replacement devices and AT&T and T-Mobile completely halting its sales.

"While Samsung investigates multiple reports of issues, T-Mobile is temporarily suspending all sales of the new Note 7 and exchanges for replacement Note 7 devices," the company said.