Consumer Reports—a non-profit organization for product safety and testing in the US—has demanded Samsung to official recall all of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.
On Friday, the company had suspended sales of its latest flagship smartphone after 35 confirmed incidents of explosion in phablets while charging.
Galaxy Note 7 was officially launched in the UK on Friday.
According to reports, Samsung has identified a fault within batteries that have been supplied by one of a few companies used in the Note 7.
Samsung has already sold 1 million flagship smartphone in the US and South Korea. The company has however not initiated a full recall, stating that it would “voluntarily replace their current device with a new one over the coming weeks”.
“Samsung should immediately initiate an official recall with the Consumer Product Safety Commission given the serious nature of the safety problem it identified with the Galaxy Note7,” said Maria Rerecich, Consumer Reports director of electronics testing.
Bloomberg has estimated that Samsung may have to shell out about $1billion if it decides to replace all the 2.5 million Note 7 smartphones shipped since the smartphone went on-sale.
Many users uploaded pictures of charred smartphones on social media, complaining that their device burst into flames while charging.
The latest 5.7-inch Galaxy Note had followed the highly successful Galaxy S7 Edge that enabled Samsung’s share prices to attain a record height last month. Samsung was also expecting its flagship phone to go head-to-head with the Apple iPhone 7, expected to be unveiled this week.
“Samsung is committed to producing the highest quality products and we take every incident report from our valued customers very seriously,” a spokesperson for Samsung last week told Express.co.uk.
“In response to recently reported cases of the new Galaxy Note7, we conducted a thorough investigation and found a battery cell issue.”
“However, because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7.”
Samsung Galaxy Note 7, described as a fabulous device by many experts and users, features a dual-curved 5.7-inch Quad-HD Super AMOLED display. It sports an in-built iris scanner to verify the identity of the user with a quick glance of the eyeball.
According to Consumer Reports, some retailers in the US are still selling the phone despite a halt in sales from Samsung. Consumer Reports has also contacted the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on this issue.
A full recall implemented under CPSC would mean that all smartphones sold will be returned to Samsung and all retail outlets will also immediately halt the sale of the device.
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