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Tech conglomerate, Samsung has urged users of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones to “turn off” their phones and stop continued usage.
The company also said sales of the phone has been stopped.
The company said in a statement: “Because consumers’ safety remains our top priority, Samsung will ask all carrier and retail partners globally to stop sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7 while the investigation is taking place.
“Consumers with either an original Galaxy Note 7 or replacement Galaxy Note 7 device should power down and stop using the device and take advantage of the remedies available”.
This comes after users reported that the batteries of the phone “exploded”. Last month, photos of many of such cases went viral on the internet.
A Southwest Airlines flight in the US was recently evacuated after a passenger’s Samsung phone began emitting smoke.
Flight 994 leaving Louisville, Kentucky was evacuated on the runway prior to takeoff.
Samsung was then forced to recall about 2.5 million devices.
A few weeks later, the company assured users that the replacement phones were safe for use until negative reports started to filter in again.
The present turn of events couldn’t have come at a worse time for Samsung as competition in the $400bn phone market is at an all-time high.
Andrew Milroy, a technology analyst at Frost & Sullivan told the BBC that: “Samsung had been making a comeback against its rivals. This catastrophic product fault will seriously damage its competitive position in the smartphone market.”