Samsung will permanently discontinue the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone amid fears that it could catch fire or explode.
In a short statement to the Huffington Post UK a Samsung spokesperson said: “We can confirm the report that Samsung has permanently discontinued the production of Galaxy Note7.”
The news comes after Samsung issued an urgent statement asking that all Galaxy Note 7 users should turn their devices off immediately.
In a press release on the company’s website, Samsung said “because consumers’ safety remains our top priority, Samsung will ask all carrier and retail partners globally to stop sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note7.”
It had originally been thought that this would simply be a temporary measure while Samsung carried out a full investigation into the faulty handset.
However it now appears as though the company will permanently halt both sales and production of the smartphone, presumably fearing that the damage to the smartphone’s reputation was too great.
As part of this decision Samsung has urgently asked that all users “with either an original Galaxy Note7 or replacement Galaxy Note7 device should power down and stop using the device and take advantage of the remedies available.”
Samsung’s landmark decision to halt sales of one of its biggest smartphones comes after a flurry of incidents in which the Note 7 appears to have caught fire or exploded.
Initially the company claimed that it was a manufacturing fault that had affected just a small number of the phones sold, nevertheless the company issued a mass recall offering affected customers a brand-new handset free of charge.