Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, after discovery of several problems with the display by reviewers, said on Monday to be delaying the retail launch of the phone which was set to be on April 26 causing trouble to the repute of handset maker which is largest in the world.
Earlier in the last week, reviewers, provided with the test sets by the company, started posting issue in the device on Twitter, but the company as of last Friday was unable to determine the root cause of the display screen issues, according to founder of Moor Insights & Strategy Patrick Moorhead, who said that he was in direct contact with the company.
Samsung, ahead of planned April 26 launch, provided the journalists, bloggers and analysts in the United States with about 50 units of the $1,980 samples of the Galaxy Fold for their review, Moorhead said.
Though it was right away unclear about the number of devices that came to be having defects, but, according to the Twitter posts of journalists and a YouTube personality, the units containing issues were four in number.
Samsung, until now, declined to comment except a prepared statement and a Samsung spokesman saying on Monday that the company has decided to delay the release of Galaxy Fold for fully evaluating the feedback and conducting further internal examinations of the handset.
The smartphone maker has also postponed media events in Shanghai and Hong Kong which were planned to be held this week.
While Samsung did not mentioned about the time duration of the delay or about production whether it has been stopped or not, some analyst are describing the impact of delay as smaller compared to a 2016 incident faced by the company with its Galaxy Note 7, which resulted in massive recall and production stoppage of the device.
The situation is embarrassing for the company’s repute, but there will not be any significant financial effect to be faced by the company as it has created a whole new product-line with this foldable phone. So there is no market share which the company has to lose, said Moorhead, who added that review sample of the phone provided to him is working without any problem.
