Samsung struggles to limit damage from smartphone recall

SEOUL: Heated meetings, sacrificed holidays and teams monitoring social media round-the-clock to track whether there have been any new smartphone fires: Samsung Electronics is still desperately trying to limit the damage of a record global recall announced more than a month ago.

Samsung said most of the fire-prone Galaxy Note 7s have been recovered in major markets, including the United States and South Korea.

But the trouble is not over for either South Korea´s largest listed company or mobile division chief Koh Dong-jin, who bowed in a public apology last month, less than a year into the job.

Samsung´s hopes of finally getting ahead of the crisis took a knock on Wednesday.

A replacement model began smoking inside a U.S. plane on Wednesday, the family that owns it said, prompting fresh investigations by safety regulators.

And on top of that, Samsung is being pressured by one of the world´s most aggressive hedge funds, Elliott Management, to split the company and pay out $27 billion in a special dividend.

UNLUCKY TURNAhead of the Note 7´s August launch, Koh told other executives how lucky he was: taking charge of the world´s largest smartphone business just before it began to reverse two years of declining sales and market share.

Instead, he was soon weathering international aviation bans on the phone, online jokes and criticism over Samsung´s handling of the process.