Samsung customer in China reports battery fire in new Note7

BEIJING — A Chinese man reported that a Note7 smartphone from Samsung Electronics exploded after he bought it this week, raising questions about whether the South Korean company’s problems with battery fires are spreading to new devices.

The 25-year-old customer, Mr Hui Renjie, said his Note7 exploded on Monday morning (Sept 26), less than 24 hours after he got it delivered from the e-commerce website JD.com. He said the incident caused minor injuries to two of his fingers and burned his Apple MacBook. A Samsung representative visited him soon afterward and asked to take away the phone, he said, but he declined the offer because he doesn’t trust the company to reveal the reason for the fire and plans to publicise the issue.

“We are in contact with the customer and will conduct a thorough examination of the device in question once we receive it,” the Korean company said in an e-mailed statement.

Samsung has been engulfed in perhaps the worst crisis in its corporate history after Note7 smartphones began to burst into flame just days after they hit the market in August. The Suwon-based company announced on Sept 2 that it would replace all the 2.5 million phones sold globally at that point. Samsung said that it had uncovered the cause of the battery fires and that it was certain new phones wouldn’t have the same flaws.

The latest China incident raises the prospect that Samsung has battery problems with Note7 phones now hitting the market, adding the risk of further recalls and potential brand damage. Analysts have estimated that the original recall would cost the company US$1 billion to US$2 billion (S$1.3 billion to S$2.7 billion).

Samsung examined two Note7 devices bought online in China earlier this month that ignited in users’ hands, but determined that heat had been applied from an external source and that batteries weren’t the cause of the fires.

Samsung drew criticism for the recall as well as the battery fires. The company announced replacement plans publicly before working out how millions of consumers in 10 countries would actually get replacements. Consumer advocates in the US voiced concerns that Samsung’s lack of coordination with regulators risked causing confusion. BLOOMBERG