Samsung Angers Investors Over Halt in Note 7 Sales

Samsung shares were down 7.5 percent after the company announced it will halt production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones. Shares in the company have taken a major hit this year after the company failed to rectify the safety problems. The Galaxy Note 7 was initially recalled after some of the phones caught on fire, while a few others exploded. The replacement batch also had similar safety problems, forcing the company to postpone production. The phone was expected to be the answer to Apple’s iPhone. The company lost 19 trillion won ($17 billion) of its market value on Tuesday, showing the loss of patience from investors. The second recall in two months comes just weeks before the company releases its Q3 earnings report. It also come before the holiday sales period commences.

Bad news for Samsung means good news for Apple and Google. Apple’s shares were up by 1.7 percent to close at $116.05 for the day. Google shares are also up by 1.68 percent to close at $814.17. Hope isn’t lost for Samsung however, as the company still has many other highly-relevant products. Jeremy Gleeson, fund manager at Axa Framlington Global Technology remarked “They have put out some very important products over the years so I don’t think customers will be completely switched off. Outside of smartphones, they are still the leading supplier of memory chips. Those chips continue to get used in a whole variety of industries so if anything, that should continue to bode well for Samsung.” He went on to say that Samsung has a prominent position in the market as one of the major manufacturers of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens, a product that will be used in the next generation of iPhones.