Samsung Note 7 scrapping won't affect Ja

The Jamaica Samsung store said that the scrapping of the Samsung Note 7 phone will not affect its projected sales for the year since the phone wasn’t officially released in the Latin American region, which includes Jamaica.

While acknowledging that he has seen persons with the phone in Jamaica, the manager of the Half-Way Tree-based store, Paul Byfield, told The Star that the phone was not officially released in the region. “There is no authorised Note 7 in the region, unless somebody bought the phone in another region and brought it here,” Byfield said. “If we didn’t have this problem with the device, the phone would have reached the region from mid-September.”

According to Byfield, the discontinuation of the Note 7 won’t affect its projected year end sale. “Since it wasn’t officially introduced, I can safely say that it won’t affect our year end sale. If we had it stocked and that had happened then it would have certainly affected our sales,” Byfield said. “The J-series is the most popular Samsung phone in the island now. That’s part of the reason the discontinuation won’t affect our sales."

However, he said that if the phone had reached the region it would have spiked sales. “People would go and get the phone so we would probably see a spike somewhere,” Byfield said.

Meanwhile, Caribbean air carrier, Liat, has announced that it has placed a ban on the Samsung Note 7 device on all it carriers. In a release, Liat said that the device will not be permitted in checked or carry-on baggage and may not be carried on board on any Liat flight.   

On October 3, a Southwest airline from Louisville to Baltimore in the United States, was evacuated when a Note 7 phone caught fire and filled the cabin of the plane with smoke. Last week the South Korean electronic giant recalled and discontinued the instruments after complaints that the corrected version of the phone is still exploding.  

In an attempt to make up for the gaffe with the Note 7, Samsung plans to add some features from the discontinued phone to the S7 and S7 Edge.