Samsung investigation reportedly finds batteries at fault for Note 7 fires

Last September, Samsung faced the biggest setback in its plans of world domination when its hugely popular Galaxy Note 7 smartphones began catching fire after millions of them were sold worldwide.

At the time, the Korean megacorp suspected that faulty batteries manufactured by its sister company SDI were to blame, but hadn’t arrived at a conclusion. Now, Reuters reports that a person familiar with the matter said that it was indeed the batteries that were the cause of the fires.

When manufacturing firm Instrumental tore down the Note 7 last month, it said that the phone’s design was what caused the issue, as there was no gap between the body and the battery inside – causing it to become compressed over time, even without outside pressure being exerted.

The beleaguered Note 7 was recalled last September and subsequently banned on flights across the globe. It halted production and sales of the device in October. This month, Samsung said that about 96 percent of all Note 7s have been returned to the company.

However, according to Reuters’ source, Samsung was able to replicate the fire and didn’t find hardware design or software-related issues to be the problem – so it’ll be interesting to learn exactly what caused the devices to burst into flames.

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At the beginning of January, South Korean news outlet JoongAng Ilbo reported that Samsung has completed its investigation of the issue plaguing the Note 7 and would publish its findings later this month. Reuters’ source says that we can expect to hear about that on January 23, just a day ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings results announcement.

Hopefully Samsung has learned something from the debacle – which cost the company $5.2 billion in operating profits over the last three quarters – and will avoid such mistakes as it attempts to bounce back with its upcoming Galaxy S8, which will likely be revealed at this year’s Mobile World Congress expo in February.