Samsung now plans to remotely kill remaining Note7 units in Korea

Last week, Samsung decided to give more time to Galaxy Note7 in South Korea and elected not to entirely kill the remaining 140,000 units in the wild. In a new development today, however, the tech giant seems to have changed its mind and will allegedly be killing said units after all. To quote the official spokesperson:

Samsung is considering to push the software update to the Note 7 in Korea that can limit the battery charge of the device as the exchange rate has exceeded 90 percent here

Now, the statement does mention "limit", however, since Korean units did already receive the initial preemptive update, capping the charge to 60%, the most likely escalation would naturally be killing the devices - a process already underway in many other markets.

The OTA will likely hit SK Telecom units first, with other carrier, like KT and LG Uplus expected to follow soon. To accommodate the new measures to some extent, Samsung has also extended its exchange or return program until the end of January. However, users participating after December 31 will be considered tardy and will not be getting any additional exchange benefits.

These final measures aren't all that surprising. Samsung can't really afford to drag out the unfortunate saga for much longer and since return rates are already hovering around 90% and beyond in most other markets, it would be rather careless for the company to lose the final few yards on its home turf.

Source | Via