The Galaxy Note 7 is dead

Samsung has announced it's ending production of the Galaxy Note 7 around the world, pulling the plug on the phone after a months-long controversy over its defective, dangerous batteries. "Taking our customer’s safety as our highest priority, we have decided to halt sales and production of the Galaxy Note 7," said Samsung in a statement. The announcement follows yesterday's news that the company is recalling all Note 7 devices, including the supposedly safe replacement phones.

Samsung issued the worldwide recall yesterday after at at least five replacement Note 7 handsets caught fire over the past week. "Samsung will ask all carrier and retail partners globally to stop sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7," said the company yesterday. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission commended the decision, with chairman Elliot Kaye saying: "It is the right move for Samsung to suspend the sale and exchange of all Galaxy Note 7s."

"Taking our customer’s safety as our highest priority"

Consumers using any Note 7 (including replacement units) are urged to power them down immediately and return them to wherever they were originally purchased. Carriers have issued statements letting customers know that replacement Note 7s can be exchanged for another handset from Samsung or other manufacturers.

The Note 7 was originally released in August to highly positive reviews, but before the month was out, the first reports of the phone's battery catching fire began to emerge. Samsung issued a recall of the original device on September 2nd and that same month began shipping out replacement Note 7s to carriers. However, these too have proved to be a fire risk, leading to the company's expected — but still momentous — decision to cease production altogether.

Although Samsung and the rest of the mobile industry will be dissecting what exactly went wrong here for years to come, early reports suggest that the fault might have been caused by the Korean company's desire to beat this year's "dull" iPhone. Samsung is certainly not out of the mobile business despite this disaster, but recovery will be slow. The company's shares tumbled 8 percent today, its biggest one-day decline in nearly a decade, with analysts estimating the recall could end up costing as much as $17 billion.