Samsung Electronics Co. strongly advised against the use of its Galaxy Note 7 in Korea and the United States Saturday, just about a week after it announced a voluntary recall of its fire-prone premium phablets across 10 markets.

In its respective announcements to the Galaxy Note 7 users at home and in the States, it asked users to “power down” their Galaxy Note 7 phones and “exchange them as soon as possible.” Rental phones are available across its service centers and outlets in Korea until replacement phones using safe batteries are ready on Sep. 19, it added.

Samsung stressed that its “number one priority” is “safety” of its customers, which led the tech giant to offer a global replacement program on Sep. 1 for 2.5 million units of its Galaxy Note 7 shipped worldwide, after some of them caught fire on a battery cell issue.

The Korean tech giant is yet to decide whether it should also urge users of the Galaxy Note 7 elsewhere other than Korea and America to immediately stop using the phablets. It released the Galaxy Note 7 devices on Aug. 19 in 10 countries – Korea, the States, Canada, Taiwan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates.

It will, however, keep selling the Note 7 devices using faultless batteries released in China earlier this month.

Recent numerous fire reports involving lithium-ion batteries in certain Galaxy Note 7 devices have led the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to prohibit the use of the device on Friday. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also issued a statement to advise passengers not to turn on or charge the Note 7 devices on board aircraft and not to stow them in any checked baggage.

Other aviation and transport authorities and airlines across the world including the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Transport of Canada, Tigerair Taiwan and Far Eastern Air Transport Co. and Singapore Airlines Ltd. have also issued bans or guidelines to stop passengers from turning on or charging the device on flights.

Regarding the U.S. CPSC and FAA’s ban issues on Note 7, some IT market insiders responded that the authorities have “gone overboard,” worrying that recent rising protectionism and increasing trade-restrictive measures beyond tariffs in the United States also might have contributed to their decisions.

By Song Sung-hoon and Oh Chan-jong

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]