Samsung issues global recall for Galaxy Note7 due to exploding batteries

Thirty five. With the millions of units pushed by Samsung throughout the years, that number seems rather small. But those are still 35 units too many of people reporting “battery cell issue” with photos showing up on social media of Galaxy Note7‘s supposedly getting torched, or worse, exploding while charging.

That’s why the South Korean tech company has issued a global recall for all units it has sold so far in the two weeks it’s been released. And Samsung will be replacing the phones it has already sold. Sales of the Note7 will also be put on hold at the moment as Samsung investigates what happened.

This hits Samsung at a critical time and leaves them with a big task ahead. Around 2.5 million devices have reportedly been sold already and replacing these will be sure to impact the bottom line as well as be a mammoth task to complete.

Samsung hasn’t specified yet how the replacement process will go. But the company has a lot of things to take care of, aside from trying to do damage control. The issue could also hinder the momentum the company has going in terms of sales since the release of the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge.

But with this issue, Apple might benefit as it’s said to release new iPhone 7 models next week.

UPDATE (9/3/2016 @ 9:33 am): Number of units sold worldwide is updated to 2.5 million. We’re currently reaching out to both Smart and Globe to ask about their plans for the local release of the device.

UPDATE (9/3/2016 @ 9:47 am): Unbox PH has reported that Smart has stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7.

UPDATE (9/3/2016 @ 10:31 am): Here is the official statement we got from Smart.

UPDATE (9/6/2016 @ 10:26 pm): Here is the official statement from Globe.