Samsung to Permanently Discontinue Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone
[drip, drip, drip, drip, drip…]They have spent a huge amount of money on marketing this phone. I wrote a week or so back it could be the end of Samsung and people told me I was an idiot - they make so many other things, their spread is so broad, they can just produce the next phone and move on.This has done untold damage to their brand in the eyes of the average consumer and has wasted so much money, I think they are going to need to get smart, and quickly.First, all those sales are now refunded. That is going to hurt cashflow and cause ripples across the entire business. Sure, it's not going to hurt some of their industrial projects but hampered cash flow is like having a respiratory disease: most people who get pneumonia don't die of the pneumonia, but organs shutting down because of the lack of oxygen they get as a result of the pneumonia.Secondly, a lot of marketing dollars are now wasted, gone. They did a global campaign around the Olympics for this phone - it doesn't get much bigger. Just be glad that they didn't launch this in early February otherwise they would have taken every Super Bowl slot available. Those who do remember their advertising around this spend will remember it as them talking about a phone that scared airlines into thinking it might take down an aircraft.Finally, many consumers won't buy Samsung phones again as a minimum when they're first released, maybe never as a worst case scenario. This has done long-term damage, we can't deny it.I know a lot of people are fans of Samsung, and it's true they are a great company, but objectively this has got to be damaging to them.