Samsung killed the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones this week after the devices continued to burst into flames. But the tech behemoth has not extinguished scrutiny over its safety record.
The South Korean manufacturer, which makes an array of consumer electronics, including kitchen appliances and television sets, is in the middle of juggling other safety problems. Those include a recall in Australia for more than 144,000 Samsung washing machines that were prone to causing fires, and a potential recall of defective laundry units in the United States.
Over the years, Samsung has faced other safety situations that have resulted in regulators taking action. The larger incidents include a 2003 recall of 184,000 microwave ovens in the United States, and 210,000 refrigerators in South Korea in 2009. There have been other smaller recalls, including one in 2009 of about 43,000 microwave ovens in the United States because of a shock hazard and 20,000 washing machines in 2007 because of a fire risk.
Those episodes have been compounded by consumer frustration. People who have faced safety hazards with Samsung kitchen and home appliances said they frequently had to jump through hoops to get replacement products or refunds. To them, Samsung's bungled handling of the Galaxy Note recall this week was not surprising.
Ed O'Rourke, a resident of Boston, said that over the span of four years, Samsung replaced his malfunctioning induction range three times before the fourth one's glass cooktop exploded in 2013. After that, Samsung declined to issue a refund until 2015, after his wife fought the company in small-claims court and won. The couple now uses an Electrolux range.
The panoply of other Samsung product recalls shows that the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco was not an isolated case, though it was the company's largest by far, with more than 2.5 million devices. Combined with Samsung's often bureaucratic process for rectifying these consumer issues, it raises questions about whether the company prioritized profit over customer safety.
"I thought, why doesn't this happen to Apple or GE? And is Samsung playing it a little too cute in pushing things to limits that other companies aren't pushing in terms of engineering-safety ratio?" O'Rourke said.
Product recalls are common among consumer electronics companies, so given the large portfolio of Samsung products and the size of the company, some problems to its lineup are to be expected.
Apple, Samsung's chief rival, has had a number of smaller recalls for products, including one for thousands of Beats speakers last year after receiving complaints of overheating, and a recall for some iPod Nanos in 2011 because of issues related to overheating.
A Samsung spokeswoman pointed to an earlier statement about its washing machines in Australia, in which the company said thousands of refunds and replacements had been made and that customer safety was its top priority.
Yet the scale and prominence of the Galaxy Note 7 problem renews the spotlight on Samsung's safety record in other product areas, even as the company grapples with the smartphone recall. On Wednesday, Samsung revised its third-quarter profit estimates to absorb $2 billion in losses. The company said it earned 5.2 trillion won in the third quarter, 33.3 per cent less than the 7.8 trillion won profit it had estimated last week. It said it had also cut its sales estimate for the quarter by 2 trillion won, to 47 trillion won.
©2016 The New York Times News Service
