Samsung had high hopes from the Galaxy Note 7 and soon after the device was officially launched, it seemed like this handset was going to be a hit. It appealed to most buyers who found it to be a phablet that they were willing to spend their money on. It all went wrong when the Galaxy Note 7 started catching fire and even though Samsung tried to fix the problem, it had to discontinue the flagship. Samsung lost billions of dollars as a result of this and while some believe that the iPhone 7 would have taken advantage of this, some analysts are of the view that the iPhone 7 is just not good enough for that.
Since the Galaxy Note 7 was a flagship product, the assumption was that customers who get a refund would go pick up an iPhone 7 instead because it was the latest device on the market, aside from the fact that iPhones are some of the most sought after smartphones on the planet.
However, research firm NPD’s primary hardware analyst Stephen Baker said that Samsung was able to get Note 7 customers to purchase a different high-end Galaxy smartphone due to “Apple’s own lack of a wowing product this year.”
Chetan Sharma, a mobile industry consultant, holds the same view. He also believes that the iPhone 7 wasn’t compelling enough for prospective Samsung customers to pick it up when they found out that the Galaxy Note 7 will no longer be sold.
Samsung itself gave customers who already had a Galaxy Note 7 the option to exchange it for a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 Edge get the price difference refunded. Multiple reports have since revealed that this is the option that most customers went with, they decided to stick with Samsung despite the Galaxy Note 7’s failure.