T-Mobile said it will resume sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 tomorrow, becoming the third U.S. carrier to bring the device back to market following a worldwide recall.
Verizon and Sprint have already resumed sales of the Galaxy Note 7; AT&T’s website informs customers that it has replacement devices for in-store exchanges but hasn’t yet begun to sell the phone again. T-Mobile will once again sell the device tomorrow both online and at retail outlets.
The Galaxy Note 7 appeared to be well positioned to challenge Apple’s iPhone 7 at the high end of the smartphone market during the coming holiday season. Sales of Samsung’s new flagship were up 25 percent over last year’s model prior to the recall, according to analysts at BayStreet Research.
The South Korean manufacturer issued an initial recall of the high-end phone more than three weeks ago following dozens of reports of batteries overheating, catching fire or exploding. That move was followed two weeks later by the official announcement of a recall of 1 million of the devices by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Samsung has seen its market cap shrink by billions during the Galaxy Note 7 debacle, and analysts have estimated the company could lose $5 billion in revenue after accounting for the cost of recalling the 2.5 million units that must be replaced. But it appears the company is finally making progress with the recall program – and many users may not be shying away from replacing recalled phones with newer models.
The company said last week that more than 60 percent of Galaxy Note 7 devices sold in the U.S. and South Korea had been exchanged through the replacement program, and roughly 90 percent of users had chosen a replacement model “since products became widely available.”
U.S. mobile network operators appear to have moved quickly to get the Galaxy Note 7 back on their shelves. And that bodes well for Samsung as the all-important fourth quarter begins to heat up.
For more:
- see T-Mobile’s website
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