Last night, smartphone-maker Samsung confirmed to Reuters that it had delayed a number of shipments of its latest device, the Galaxy Note 7, after numerous reports of exploding batteries began to circulate.
Photos posted on the Chinese site Baidu show a charred device, though some commenters speculate that the fire stems from the use of a third-party charging cable.
The halt comes at a particularly bad moment, a week before Apple is set to announce its next phone. Samsung’s electronics division lost $7 billion in market value as a result, according to Reuters.
Shipments to South Korea’s three largest cell-phone companies have been delayed. Several Korean media outlets are reporting that Samsung plans to recall affected phones and replace their batteries.
