Dubious report claims Samsung will sell refurbed Note 7 devices in emerging markets next year, a move which would be disconnected from both reality and common sense.
Are you ready for a bizarre footnote in the Galaxy Note 7 saga? According to Korean outlet The Investor, which has made its name in recent weeks with some questionable Galaxy S8 rumors, the notoriously fire-prone handset might go on sale again in 2017 — at least in emerging markets like India and Vietnam.
[Samsung] is expected to sell the refurbished products of its handset from next year, according to sources.
"Samsung has not made a final decision yet, but it will likely sell the refurbished Note 7 units next year," an industry source said. The source anticipated the refurbished handsets will be mostly sold in emerging markets such as India and Vietnam where low-end and mid-range smartphones are popular.
The tiny hair of logic running through this report is that it'd give Samsung a way to offload the couple million (potentially explosive) Note 7s it currently has sitting in storage following the two global recalls. That's assuming it had worked out what was making the phones catch fire in the first place — the most damaging part of the whole Note 7 saga was that Samsung, even after the first recall, failed to address the underlying cause. (A full-page ad run in U.S. newspapers last week suggested the company was still investigating.)
Even if it was to somehow fix and refurbish enough Note 7s — and really actually fix them for real this time — all the standard arguments against a return for the product still apply. The Note 7 is a joke, and its brand is terminally damaged. Even a limited roll-out in a couple of countries would generate the wrong kind of headlines for Samsung, and the manufacturer would also have to restart firmware development, and bear the costs associated with that. Then there's the fact that anyone buying one of these hypothetical refurbs would have a hard time taking one onboard an airplane, or proving that it wasn't dangerous.
If I were Samsung, I'd be hoping to just sweep the whole thing under some kind of giant, fire-retardant rug at this point, and instead focus on the Galaxy S8. The short-term benefits of shifting a few phones would be outweighed by prolonging a saga that the company surely wishes would end. For all of those reasons, I'd be amazed if anything like this actually ended up happening — I really do think we've seen the last of the Galaxy Note 7.
Samsung declined to comment on the report, saying it doesn't comment on rumor or speculation.
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