If you recall, a photo leak last week revealed a new Blue Coral variant of the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, and that it’s headed to Verizon in the US. Now, the South Korean company has officially confirmed the new Galaxy S7 edge color.
Specifically, the confirmation came from Samsung’s Singapore subsidiary which announced the retail availability for the handset on its official website.
The image that leaked last week
“Samsung today also announced the retail availability of the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge 4G+ in Blue Coral, adding a stunning colour variant to this sleek and stylish device,” the company said in a press release.
“Currently available in Black Onyx, Gold Platinum, Silver Titanium and Pink Gold, the new colour variant of the Galaxy S7 edge 4G+ features a refined design coupled with powerful functionality while encased in a cool blue hue.”
As for availability, the subsidiary said the phone (32GB variant) will go on sale in the Asian country starting November 5. It will carry a price tag of SGD 1,098 ($787).
The Apple iPhone 7 went on sale in South Korea on Friday, seeking to fill a void left by arch-rival Samsung on its home turf following a damaging recall fiasco over the Note 7 smartphone.
The South Korean electronics giant discontinued the Note 7 — one of its key iPhone challengers — on October 11 following reports that replacements for combustible models were also catching fire.
The decision is set to cost Samsung billions in lost profits, and there are already signs that Apple is reaping some of the benefits.
An official at mobile carrier Korea Telecom (KT) said the first batch of 50,000 iPhone 7s they put up for pre-order a week ago sold out in 15 minutes.
“I would attribute part of that to the Note 7 effect,” said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorised to talk to the media.
Customer defection is one of Samsung’s biggest concerns, especially as the Note 7 was specifically aimed at taking on the iPhone in the premium handset market.
In the hope of retaining customer loyalty, Samsung had offered Note 7 users a 70,000 won ($60) phone bill credit if they swapped their faulty phones with another Samsung handset.
The half-dozen customers buying the new iPhone at a KT store in central Seoul on Friday were all long-time Apple users who had pre-ordered their handsets.
Office worker Lee Kyung-Hee, 34, said she had moved fast when the pre-order service opened, fearing a surge of interest from unhappy Note 7 owners.
“I set an alarm and was very quick,” Lee said.
In South Korea, retail prices for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus start from 869,000 won and 1.02 million won respectively, for their basic 32GB models.
For example, a good place to look for a Note 7 is Hong Kong, as a store there is selling the recalled model at a special price, even though it’s pretty clear that using this phone is no longer recommended.
Samsung: Stop using the Note 7!
Samsung made it very clear in the official recall published October 13 that using a Note 7 is no longer safe, so it’s working with retailers to get all phones off the market and replace them with S7 Edge or offer full returns to customers.
“Since the affected devices can overheat and pose a safety risk, we are asking consumers with a Galaxy Note7 to power it down and contact the carrier or retail outlet where they purchased their device,” Samsung explained.
‘So why would anyone still purchase a Note 7?’ you could ask. The answer is pretty simple: if they get a Note 7 at a special price (read heavily discounted), they can then return it to Samsung and receive a brand new S7 Edge, the price difference between the two, as well as $100 in bill credit.
So it could all prove to be a pretty smart move for those looking to make some extra money, although we’re pretty sure that there’ll always be people saying that it is not worth the effort.
In the meantime, keep in mind that using a Note 7 is not safe by any means, even though there are so many people out there who refuse to return it. The risk of overheating and the battery catching fire is pretty big, so it’s indeed a good idea to send it back to Samsung or the retailer and get an S7 Edge instead.
South Korean prosecutors investigating a confidante of President Park Geun-hye for corruption have searched the offices of Samsung, according to local media.
Samsung, the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones, televisions and memory chips, is suspected of having secretly funded the sporting activities of the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, Park’s friend, it was reported on Tuesday.
Samsung, which is already reeling from the disaster surrounding its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, confirmed that its offices had been raided but gave no further details.
The company is suspected of having transferred $3.1m to a company owned by Choi in Germany.
The money was allegedly used to pay for daughter’s training as a dressage rider.
Growing scandal
Tuesday’s raid also came just as Park agreed to cede some control of state affairs as the result of the damaging corruption scandal that has engulfed her administration.
In what is being considered a major political concession, Park told the speaker of the National Assembly that she would accept a prime minister chosen by the opposition-controlled legislature “and let him control the cabinet”.
The prime minister is normally a largely symbolic post in South Korea, where power is firmly concentrated in the executive.
It was a double surrender by Park – effectively jettisoning her own nominee for prime minister and relinquishing some of her extensive powers to whoever parliament chooses.
It was reported from Seoul, said that Park’s concession “doesn’t go perhaps as far as some opposition members were demanding – that all affairs should be handled by the prime minister and that the president should simply step back altogether – but it does allow some ground for work to start on some agreement”.
Park is facing a growing scandal over Choi’s alleged influence on state affairs despite her having no official position in the government, with tens of thousands of protesters in Seoul demanding Park’s resignation over the weekend.
Choi has been arrested on charges of fraud and abuse of power.
The charges relate to allegations that Choi used her personal relationship with Park to coerce donations from large companies like Samsung to non-profit foundations she set up and used for personal gain.
She is also accused of interfering with government affairs, including the nomination of senior officials.
Unhealthy influence
Reports of the unhealthy influence Choi wielded over Park have sent the president’s approval ratings plunging to record lows and led to mass street protests calling on her to resign.
In a bid to restore public trust, Park reshuffled her advisers and senior cabinet members, and nominated a liberal candidate for prime minister from outside her conservative Saenuri Party.
But opposition parties had pledged to block her nominee on the grounds that they were not properly consulted.
During their meeting, Chung Sye-kyun, the parliamentary speaker, told Park that her biggest priority should be to alleviate widespread public concern and anxiety.
David Beckham has split with fashion retailer H&M – and he’s being upstaged by a Canadian pop star with a hairdo worse than Donald Trump’s…
H&M introduced its first Beckham Bodywear collection featuring form-fitting underwear in 2012 and expanded the partnership to include a broader range of garments including jerseys and light summer suits dubbed Modern Essentials in March 2015. There’s even been a Beckham raincoat.
But now the brand believes it is time for a change. It has signed up Grammy-winning R&B artist Abel Tesfaye, 26, who performs under the deliberately misspelled name The Weeknd, for a one-off menswear collection which will go on sale from March. The chain believes the new signing will appeal to younger shoppers than Beckham, now 41.
According to Bloomberg, H&M said it would not rule out future collaborations with Beckham, who also has partnerships with Hong Kong-based Global Brands, endorses Adidas shoes, Breitling watches and Samsung smartphones.
An H&M spokeswoman told Bloomberg there was no direct link between the end of the Beckham partnership and the signing of Tesfaye.
The singer will choose his favourite items for an H&M collection to be called Spring Icons Selected by The Weeknd.
Queuing for Kenzo
Meanwhile, H&M’s collaboration with fashion label Kenzo launched yesterday, leading to queues outside two stores in Singapore where the collection was on sale – in the Orchard Building and at Ion Orchard.
The Orchard Building store opened at 8am and by 7.30am about 100 people were lined up outside the store. Some at the front of the queue had reportedly arrived on Tuesday morning, presumably holding the place in shifts.
New Zealand’s mobile operators have hammered a nail into the coffin of Samsung’s discontinued Galaxy Note7 smartphones, arranging to blacklist use of the device across all of their mobile networks.
Industry body the New Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF) is working with Samsung to cut off access to Note7 owners from November 18.
After this date, the devices will not be able to be used across any New Zealand mobile network, although Wi-Fi services will still be available.
TCF CEO Geoff Thorn said the blacklisting represents an additional safety measure by the nation’s mobile operators.
“Numerous attempts by all providers have been made to contact owners and ask them to bring the phones in for replacement or refund, this action should further aid the return of the remaining handsets,” he said.
The blacklisting marks and attempt by operators to coerce the hold-outs to take advantage of the global recall of the device and be refunded or swap their handsets with a Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge.
Samsung permanently ended production of Note7 smartphones last month after reports that even some devices that had been replaced in the September recallhad suffered from the same overheating battery problem that led to a handful of devices exploding. Airlines worldwide had already banned in-flight use of the devices.
Samsung Electronics has confirmed Samsung Pay Thailand will make its debut before the end of this year.
Thailand, Malaysia and Russia are three of 10 new markets where the payment technology will be introduced.
Samsung Pay has also announced a global partnership with MasterCard to offer a simplified online payment and express checkout solution through its digital payment service Masterpass, starting early next year. Hundreds of thousands of merchants in 33 countries currently accept Masterpass for online payments.
“When we introduced online payments in South Korea last year, the service was well received by the market.
Online payments accounted for more than 25 per cent of the 2 trillion won in processed transactions, demonstrating that consumers may be actively looking for solutions to make their online experiences faster, simpler and secure,” said Thomas Ko, VP and Global GM, Samsung Pay, Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics.
Samsung Pay will provide consumers with a seamless online payment platform with benefits including:
Express Checkout: Skip the process of filling out long online forms. With the express checkout solution, customers will be able use their Mastercard debit or credit cards along with the shipping information saved on their Samsung Pay account to quickly complete online transactions.
Make Purchases from Any Device: Customers can make online purchases from a computer, tablet or smartphone while shopping on their favorite sites or apps.
Secure Transactions: Security remains our top priority. When making online payments, a unique token is used in an encrypted form – not the actual debit or credit card number. Users can authenticate transactions using secure methods including a fingerprint scanner, which is built into Samsung’s mobile devices.
Samsung is permanently discontinuing production and sales of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, owing to safety fears over defective batteries — including in replacement handsets the company had subsequently sent to customers following a recall of original devices.
The news was reported earlier by the WSJ, and a spokeswomen for Samsung confirmed it is ending production of the device, telling: “We can confirm the report that Samsung has permanently discontinued the production of Galaxy Note7.”
The company did not provide any additional statement explaining its decision but in a filing about ending production with South Korean regulators it cites ‘customer safety’ as the reason.
Yesterday Samsung had asked carriers and resellers to halt sales and exchanges of Note 7 devices, as reports of problems with replacement handsets mounted. Note 7 owners were offered a full refund or a refund for a different Samsung smartphone, along with a $25 gift certificate or other add-on to sweeten the hassle of dealing with two rounds of recalls.
The initial recall of the circa 2.5 million Note 7s in circulation was announced in early September.
The company had also previously said it was adjusting production of the Note 7 to, in its words, “take further steps to ensure quality and safety matters”.
However, in the event, and given the mounting PR nightmare of even replacement Note 7s having a demonstrable risk of an exploding battery — coupled with the model being namechecked as a safety hazard at airports and on flights all over the world — it’s hardly a surprise Samsung has decided to pull the plug and put the Note 7 out of its misery.
Aside from the damage to Samsung’s Galaxy brand of being associated with exploding batteries, the cost of withdrawing the Note 7 will not come cheap. Reuters cites analysts estimating that a permanent end to Note 7 sales could cost the company up to $17 billion.
Meanwhile, the company’s stock price has also taken a substantial hit on the news of the Note 7’s nixing: falling by 8 per cent today, its biggest percentage decline since October 2008, as investors wiped some $19 billion off the value of the company.
We’re taking a break from the Note 7 fiasco. Samsung seems to be refocusing its energies in other products and services because really, the damage has been done already. We know the company is already doing a lot of security and extra measures like considering maybe tapping LG for the next flagship’s battery, offering cash discounts, and launching only one flagship annually.
This time, Samsung has just announced that it’s releasing a Blue Coral version of the Galaxy S7 edge 4G+. The phone will be available soon in a new color variant, giving people another alternative to the problematic Note 7. You see, the S7 edge has always been another option within the premium flagship category even before the Note 7 was launched. The smartphone was introduced in four color options namely Pink Gold, Silver Titanium, Gold Platinum, and Black Onyx and now, it’s getting the stunning Blue Coral.
The Blue Coral Samsung Galaxy S7 edge 4G+ will roll out starting November 5 with 32GB onboard storage. Don’t be surprised but the listed retail price is a staggering $1,098.
Samsung announced this color option together with the 2016 version of the Galaxy Tab A 10.1 with S Pen 4G. The two should be available from most retailers and mobile carriers in Singapore initially and then in the United States very soon.
Garuda Indonesia has issued a ban on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 for all its flights starting from Monday due to safety issues.
This move ensues the recent ban by US Department of Transportation on the device, including its recalled and replaced units, after reports of the smartphone catching fire.
Garuda Indonesia VP corporate communications Benny S. Butarbutar said in a press release Monday that passengers in possession of a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 would not be permitted to board the aircraft. Bringing the device through carry on baggage, checked-in luggage, or cargo was also strictly prohibited.
This is the second ban issued by the airline regarding Samsung Galaxy Note 7. In early September, it banned the use of the device during flights as well as warned passengers not to charge the battery or store the smartphone in checked baggage.
Samsung has already been forced to recall more than 2.5 million devices due to faulty batteries. The company has instructed users to “power down and stop using the device”, and announced the permanent end of its production last week.
Samsung has officially halted production of the Galaxy Note7, following multiple reports of batteries overheating and catching fire even in devices replaced during last month’s recall.
The company confirmed it has permanently discontinued production of its flagship smartphone, leaving the company without a high-end device to compete against the iPhone 7 with during the holiday shopping season.
During last month’s major product recall, Samsung had blamed a single battery supplier for the overheating problem that caused the fires, and had switched suppliers for production of the replacement models. But with multiple reports that even replaced devices are catching fire, this explanation is in doubt.
Samsung is offering Note7 buyers either full refunds, or the option to replace their device with an S7 or S7 Edge and receive a refund for the difference in price.
Analysts are predicting that permanently ending Note7 sales could cost Samsung up to $17 billion in lost sales, and the potential for reputational damage is arguably even greater.
Curiously, analysis from mobile application technology company Apteligent suggests that the reports of exploding batteries have done little to deter usage of Note7 devices. As of Sunday, the smartphone reached its highest usage rate since in August launch – 10% higher than the date of the recall. The first reports of replacement devices exploding began circulating days earlier.
The latest Samsung gadgets that can be connected to handsets are available for customers to view and purchase. Not only Galaxy smartphones and tablets are on display, but also the entire Galaxy ecosystem, such as the Gear VR and Gear S2, as well as other Samsung products. Data packages are also available to provide internet access as well as digital content to make it easier for customers to access the digital world.
The Galaxy Studio Experience Center, located at Indosat Ooredoo’s store at Sarinah in Central Jakarta, has a new design that has never been used by other network operators. It is also more spacious to allow better interaction between customers, who can enjoy experience a digital lifestyle, such as iflix video streaming on a big screen and music streaming on Spotify.
IM3 Ooredoo subscribers can also purchase data packages such as Freedom Combo, Freedom Postpaid and Super Plan, to watch TV shows and films on iflix for hours without using their main data quota.
The experience center is a strategic cooperation between the two companies to support retail sales. Indosat Ooredoo and Samsung both have the vision of giving customers an enjoyable and satisfactory experience with the Studio Experience Center.
Indosat Ooredoo director Joy Wahjudi said the experience center was established to provide a one-stop service for Indonesians.
The two companies are both committed to establishing experience centers to enable customers to obtain information and try out the latest products and services.
“We aim to also establish studio experience centers in other Indosat Ooredoo stores,” Joy said.
South Korea kicked off a nationwide shopping event on Thursday with a variety of promotions, cultural and entertainment events to draw more shoppers at home and abroad and revive the sluggish domestic consumption.
The massive shopping campaign called “Korea Sale Festa” runs until Oct. 9, involving major retailers, manufacturers and traditional markets, while cultural and entertainment programs for foreign travelers will be held throughout October.
The shopping festival is jointly hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to tie up the retail industry with tourism and cultural sectors to unleash pent-up demands in time with the major Chinese holiday season.
A total of 249 retailers, manufacturers and online malls provide discounts and promotions at 59,000 stores across the nation, offering much wider options compared with last year’s fall shopping season when “Korea Black Friday” and “Korea Grand Sale” were held between September and October.
This shopping season isn’t just limited to malls and online retailers. Consumers looking for a new vehicle, phone or television will find some attractive bargains at car dealerships and electronics stores as major companies join the shopping season. Among the big names are Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Hyundai Motor, AmorePacific and LG Household & Healthcare.
A sales manager at Samsung’s electronics store in Seoul explains discount deals on a refrigerator on Sept. 28, 2016, in this photo provided by the company.
Three car makers — Hyundai Motor, SsangYong Motor and Renault Samsung Motors — offer up to a 10 percent discount on cars during the period, while Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics give half priced deals on best-selling home appliance items. Consumers can get up to a 670,000 won discount (US$612) on Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Edge Plus smartphone.
Department stores give deep discounts on luxury goods, fashion items and cosmetics, knocking down price tags by up to 80 percent.
Among the top price for a giveaway event is a 700 million won apartment offered by Lotte Department Store, the retail unit of Lotte Group.
Online malls and social commerce sites, including Coupang and Ticket Monster, are also offering cyber deals during the period, with the government supporting part of their delivery fees to boost sales.
About 400 traditional markets nationwide will hold various events and unique festivals in October to catch the eyes of visitors and spur the local economy.
The event held ahead of the year-end holiday season is raising expectations among local retailers as it overlaps with a Chinese national holiday that runs from Oct. 1-7. It’s when deep-pocketed Chinese travelers hop on planes to go on a holiday shopping spree.
According to industry officials, about 250,000 Chinese tourists are expected to visit South Korea during the weeklong autumn holiday.
With so much money up for grabs, local retailers have prepared a bunch of promotional events and giveaways targeting Chinese patrons.
Myeongdong, the busiest shopping street in downtown Seoul, has transformed to embrace Chinese travelers, supplementing Chinese-speaking shop assistants and putting up Mandarin signs for the latest beauty products.
Duty free stores, which heavily rely on Chinese travelers, also offer promotional and entertainment events, teaming up with credit card companies.
Shinsegae Duty Free holds “K-beauty and fashion week” during the Chinese holiday at its Myeongdong branch to attract those who are interested in beauty know-how and encourage purchase of Korean beauty products.
Market watchers say the influx of Chinese tourists will give much-needed momentum to revitalize the tepid domestic consumption, which will in turn drive up shares related to consumption and leisure.
“While last year’s sales event was mostly about offering discount deals, Korea Sale Festa is more systematic with wider discounts and cultural events for foreign travelers,” Nam Ok-jin, a researcher at Samsung Securities, said. “Special offers given during (China’s) National Day is expected to maximize the effect.”
Samsung and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have sealed a partnership to jointly provide carriers with integrated network functions virtualization (NFV)infrastructure and virtual network functions (VNF) solutions.
Under the partnership, the companies will work together to merge Samsung’s carrier network and HPE’s IT telecoms expertise.
The integrated solutions will help carriers facilitate the transformation of their networks from monolithic, proprietary appliances to cloud-based networks enabled by NFV.
As part of the partnership, Samsung will join the HPE OpenNFV Partner Program as a carrier-grade network equipment provider.
“We see profound potential on joining the HPE OpenNFV Partner Program to ensure a variety of choices for carriers in selecting NFV providers, along with the commercially-proven NFV solution we developed in 2015,” said Woojune Kim, vice president and head of strategy group in next generation communication team at Samsung Electronics.
The program is a broad ecosystem of NFV technology, application and service partners that have tested and validated solutions on ETSI-compliant HPE OpenNFV infrastructure.
“HPE and Samsung have already collaborated successfully behind the scenes on NFV projects that are transforming communications service providers and their old school networks to agile telco cloud environments ready to satisfy the ever increasing demands of their customers while reducing cost,” said Werner Schaefer, vice president & general manager, NFV, HPE.
“By formalizing our partnership with Samsung, we further expand our work to bring NFV benefits to the CSP ecosystem.”
The partnership also includes a joint go-to-market strategy with ready-to-install third party solutions. Carriers can choose from various third party offerings, already verified by the HPE OpenNFV Partner Program, such as virtual private-LTE network service, vCPE and SD-WAN.
The pair will also provide telcos with NFV systems integration services to help ensure new technologies are implemented, the companies said.
Galaxy Note 7 smartphones caused headaches and occasional burns to their owners, but only 60 percent of the defective devices sold in South Korea and the U.S. have so far been exchanged with new models, Samsung says.
This means that 40 percent of the potentially explosive handsets are still in consumer hands, despite the fact that Samsung issued a worldwide recall on the smartphone almost a month ago.
The percentage shows that the successful exchanges in the U.S. are slowing down.
At the middle of last week, Samsung reported that 50 percent of the potentially hazardous smartphones were replaced with new models in the U.S. It would seem that the number of returns increased by 10 percent in five days, but keep in mind that the total figure takes into account South Korean returns as well.
Last week, reports from South Korea indicated that the return percentage in the country is north of 50 percent.
Samsung tried its best to motivate South Korean retail stores to accelerate the replacement of faulty Note 7 phones, and it even put financial incentives on the table. The Korea Times reports that vendors can earn 20,000 won (about $18) per exchanged phone. Stores can get an additional $18 per phone should they top an 80 percent exchange rate of the Note 7 handsets prior to the end of September.
Even with the financial motivators in line, mobile customers in South Korea seem rather reluctant to let go of their Galaxy Note 7s. In the OEM’s home country, it took five days to see half of the Note 7 stock exchanged, whereas in the U.S. and Singapore the switch only took two days for 50 percent of devices.
Singapore customers wasted no time and swiftly returned the fiery Note 7 models. Samsung’s recall program was open for 10 days in the country and it already ranked an 80 percent exchange of the Note 7.
The recent battery scandal dented Samsung’s reputation as a reliable electronics manufacturer as well as its share value. However, 90 percent of Note 7 customers choose to replace their phones with a safe version of the same device. Of South Korean clients, only 4 percent chose a refund over an updated Note 7.
As a reminder, the biggest smartphone builder announced on Sept. 2 that at least 2.5 million Note 7 smartphones are being recalled due to faulty batteries that can overheat while charging, causing some phones to burst into flames.
According to the OEM, the replacement devices that are in stores are sporting safe batteries.
