The unprecedented move by the South Korean electronics giant is an embarrassing reversal for a respected global brand.
When several Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones spontaneously exploded in August, the South Korean company went into overdrive. It urged hundreds of employees to quickly diagnose the problem.
None were able to get a phone to explode. Samsung's engineers, on a tight deadline, initially concluded the defect was caused by faulty batteries from one of the company's suppliers. Samsung, which announced a recall of the Note 7 devices in September, decided to continue shipping new Galaxy Note 7s containing batteries from a different supplier.