Samsung to sell refurbished Note 7: Report
Samsung Electronics will sell refurbished Galaxy Note 7s to minimize profit damage and avoid environmental costs, South Korean local media reports.
The company will reduce the battery capacity from the original's 3,500 mAh, reports Hankyung.
The units will be mostly sold in India, Vietnam, and other emerging markets, but the company may also consider selling them in South Korea before the launch of the Galaxy Note 8.
Involved divisions will finish refurbishing the Note 7 by May and begin selling the phones as early as June, the report said. The battery capacity is expected to be between 3,000 and 3,200 mAh.
Core components will be reused but cases will be newly made.
Selling the refurbished phones will allow the firm to avoid paying a fine for environmental damages. Korea's environment ministry previously said it may levy a fine on the tech giant if the remaining stocks of Note 7s are not deposed of properly.
Samsung earlier announced that 98 percent of the 3.06 million Note 7 devices distributed to the market had been recalled. 200,000 of the units were used to find out the cause of the battery fires and Samsung expects there are 2.5 million units on standby, Hankyung said.
Last month, Samsung announced that faulty batteries were the cause of the debacle last year and stressed that there was nothing wrong with the phone itself.