April 26, 2024

• 

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics on Nov. 11 launched a new Coral Blue version of its flagship S7 Edge smartphone with aims to speed up the still lukewarm recall of its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 on its home turf.

Since the Note phone was discontinued a month ago, Samsung has encouraged customers to return their phones for safety reasons. Despite some cash benefits, less than 30 percent of some 50,000 phones sold here have been returned. 

The blue shade was a hot-seller when it was first used in the Note 7. It made up more than half the phone’s earlier orders in Korea.

Samsung hopes the new launch will help speed up the Note phone’s returns by the end of this year. The company offers cash benefits when customers replace the phone with other Samsung phones.

In the US where the phone sold the most 19 million units, almost 85 percent of the phones have been returned. The company also plans to launch the blue version there before the holiday season.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)