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Samsung to Announce Cause of Galaxy Note 7 Fire Soon


FILE - A burned Samsung Note 7 smartphone belonging to Brian Green is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters.
FILE - A burned Samsung Note 7 smartphone belonging to Brian Green is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters.

Samsung Electronics said Friday it will announce on Jan. 23 the reason why its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones overheated and caught fire.

The announcement will be livestreamed in Chinese, English and Korean on its websites. Koh Dong-jin, Samsung's mobile president, will give details of the probe.

The Galaxy Note 7 was a fiasco for the world's largest smartphone maker. Samsung recalled and eventually discontinued it after numerous reports of it overheating and bursting into flames.

Initially, Samsung said it found a small error in the manufacturing process for some of the batteries in the phones was to blame. It replaced the phones with a new battery but those replaced phones also overheated and caught fire, prompting Samsung to pull the phones from the market. That cost Samsung at least $5 billion.

The announcement comes after a South Korean court dismissed on Thursday a request by prosecutors to arrest Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong heir.

Lee, the conglomerate's heir and de facto head, is under investigation for alleged bribery in connection with an influence-peddling scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.

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