RUSH TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A DULL IPHONE STARTED SAMSUNG ' S BATTERY CRISIS
Jay Y. Lee, Vice Chairman, Samsung Electronics
ment.” Samsung said in the statement that its focus now is on doing the right thing for customers and that it is working to replace the Note 7s as quickly as possible.“ For us at Samsung, to earn consumers’ trust back is very important.”
The roots of the battery crisis can be traced back more than a year, when Samsung was contemplating what features to include in new phones. The Korean company has two primary lines of premium devices, the Galaxy S and the larger Note. When the Note was first unveiled in 2011, it was panned by some critics, who mocked its massive screen. But it was a surprise hit with customers seeking the added real estate to watch videos, play games and browse the web. Samsung pretty much had the high end of the oversized smartphone market to itself until Apple followed with its larger iPhone 6 Plus in 2014.
The Plus’ s debut put pressure on Samsung to defend its turf and it moved up the 2015 introduction of the new Note from September to August, just weeks before Apple unveiled the iPhone 6s. Samsung’ s engineers met the deadline, but Apple still grabbed a chunk of market share. In December, the chief of Samsung’ s mobile division was replaced. The 55-year-old Koh, a company veteran who had managed development of several Galaxy phones, took his place on the hot seat.
Koh faced not just intensifying competition with Apple but slower growth as the whole smartphone market became saturated. When Samsung became aware that Apple didn’ t plan any major design changes, the Korean executives saw an opportunity. After a select group of top managers got their hands on early versions of the Note, they gushed over the upgrades and praised each other’ s work, according to one of the people. If Apple wasn’ t going to offer consumers anything exciting, Samsung certainly would.
With Chairman Lee in the hospital, the younger Lee and co-vice chairman G. S. Choi huddled with Koh and executives of other Samsung affiliates, which make semiconductors, glass panels and batteries. They went ahead with a slew of new features that had been on the company’ s product road map, including an improved screen and stylus-- and then approved a launch date 10 days earlier than last year, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Samsung’ s unveiling was Aug. 3 this year, compared with Aug. 13 last year. The battery is a critical component. Smartphone makers have been pushing the boundaries of the technology for years as they try to satisfy consumer demands for long-lasting devices that charge faster. That increases manufacturing challenges and raises the risks of defects.
Samsung opted to give the Note 7 a 3500
ON SEPT. 2, KOH HELD A GRIM PRESS CONFERENCE IN SEOUL WHERE HE ANNOUNCED SAMSUNG WOULD REPLACE ALL 2.5 MILLION PHONES SHIPPED SO FAR milliampere hour battery compared with 3000 mAh for the previous model. For comparison, the iPhone 7 Plus has a 2900 mAh battery. The main battery supplier for the Note 7 was Samsung SDI Co., a person with knowledge of the matter has said. The company,
62 Business Times Africa | 2016