Samsung halts sales of Galaxy Note 7 after new troubles

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Samsung said Tuesday it is halting sales of the star-crossed Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after a spate of fires involving new devices that were supposed to be safe replacements for recalled models.

They called 911, and the phone was still sizzling when a policeman came about 20 minutes later. She screamed for her husband and ran out of her bedroom. He grabbed an aluminum pan from the kitchen and told her to the put the phone in there.

Samsung sells about a third of all high-end smartphones priced above $400, while Apple sells slightly more than half, according to Credit Suisse investment analyst Kulbinder Garcha. He predicted in a report Monday that the new Note 7 problems will help Apple increase its share of the market.

“What’s happened in the last few days just complicates things enormously,” said analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research. “It calls into question their ability to manage quality control and everything else that goes into that.”

Reports of more replacement phones catching fire are trickling in, and the South Korean tech giant faces more scrutiny after earlier criticism for being slow to react and sending confusing signals in the first days of the recall. 7, 2016, photo provided by Andrew Zuis, of Farmington, Cerita Ngewe Minn., shows the replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone belonging to his 13-year-old daughter Abby, that melted in her hand earlier in the day. “She’s done with Note 7s right now,” Zuis said of his daughter.

Samsung said it is halting sales of the Galaxy Note 7 after a spate of fires involving new devices that were supposed to be safe replacements for recalled models. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy) 10, 2016 photo taken in Honolulu shows Dee Decasa’s replacement Galaxy Note 7 smartphone one day after the phone released smoke and sizzled.

He said it would take more time than the agency originally thought to figure out what’s wrong. “We would have not taken this measure if it had looked like the problems could be easily resolved,” Oh Yu-cheon, a senior official at the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards that oversees product recalls, said in a phone interview.

A visitor tries out a Samsung Electronics Galaxy Note 7 smartphone at the company’s shop in Seoul in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. Samsung Electronics has temporarily halted production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Monday, following reports that replacements for the fire-prone phones were also overheating. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Dee Decasa of Honolulu had just visited the Samsung website on her new Galaxy Note 7 when it began smoking Sunday morning. She took a screen shot of the page confirming her new phone was fine. She was double checking that the replacement phone she received was OK.

Samsung said it would ask all carriers and Cerita Ngewe retailers to stop selling the phones and providing them as replacements for recalled devices. They can also get information from the company’s website . It said consumers should return their phones to the place where they purchased them.

But analysts say the issue could hurt the company’s reputation and overall standing with consumers. The Note 7 is not Samsung’s most popular device; Samsung sells far more units of its Galaxy S7 phones than the more expensive Note 7.

It said “consumers’ safety remains our top priority.” “We are working with relevant regulatory bodies to investigate the recently reported cases involving the Galaxy Note7,” the company said in its statement.

(AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy) Dee Decasa holds her replacement Galaxy Note 7 smartphone in an aluminum pan at her home in Honolulu on Monday, Oct. 10, 2016, one day after the phone released smoke and sizzled. Samsung said it is halting sales of the Galaxy Note 7 after a spate of fires involving new devices that were supposed to be safe replacements for recalled models.

said consumers with original Note 7 devices or replacements they obtained after the recall should turn them off and seek a refund or exchange them for different phones. In a statement issued late Monday, Samsung Electronics Inc.

Officials from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission echoed that advice, saying they are investigating at least five incidents of fire or overheating reported since a formal recall in the U.S. was announced on Sept.

But four consumers have told the Associated Press that their replacement phones caught fire — including two in Kentucky, one in Minnesota and one in Hawaii. 15, Cerita Ngewe although he said investigators had not confirmed whether all five involved recall replacements. safety commission said his agency is investigating five Note 7 incidents reported since Sept. Earlier, a spokesman for the U.S.

“No one should have to be concerned their phone will endanger them, their family or their property,” said Elliot Kaye, chairman of the safety commission, in a statement. He called Samsung’s decision to stop distributing the device “the right move” in light of “ongoing safety concerns.”