Samsung is planning to sell refurbished versions of its famous Galaxy Note 7 smartphones which are pulled from markets due to their fire-prone batteries.
The Note 7s are permanently scrapped in the last October, about two months from their official launch, as more of these phones exploded despite a global recall initiated in September.
Subsequent probe found manufacturing problems in the batteries supplied by two different companies – Amperex Technology and Samsung SDI.
Analysis from the Samsung and other independent researchers found that there is no other problem in the Note 7 devices except their batteries, this raises the speculation that Samsung will recoup some of their losses by selling the refurbished Note 7s.
The company estimated about US$5.5 billion profit hit in three quarters just from the Note 7’s troubles.
The Samsung, which sold 3.06 million Note 7s to the consumers before taking phones off the market, did not previously said what they plan to do with these recovered phones.
“Regarding those Galaxy Note 7 devices as rental phones or refurbished phones, applicability is dependent upon the consultations with the regulatory authorities and the carriers as well as due consideration of the local demand,” Samsung said in a statement.
Samsung said it would just pick the markets and release dates for these refurbished Note 7s accordingly.
It also planned to recover and use or even sell reusable components such as the chips and camera modules and extract the rare metals such as gold, copper, nickel and silver from the Note 7 devices it opts not to sell as the refurbished products.
The firm had been under pressure from environment rights group Greenpeace and others to come up with environmentally friendly ways to deal with the recovered Note 7s.