Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America, kicks off the company’s CES press conference with comments about the Note 7.
Samsung sure didn’t take long to address the elephant in the room at CES — its exploding Galaxy Note 7.
The company kicked off its press conference , which typically highlights its shiny new TVs and home appliances, with an acknowledgement that the company has work to do to regain customer trust.
\u00ab\u00a0As you know, this year was a challenging year for Samsung,\u00a0\u00bb said Tim Baxter, president and chief operating officer of Samsung Electronics America. \u00ab\u00a0Some of you were directly impacted, and many of you certainly saw the media coverage. \u00a0\u00bb
He said the company continues its \u00ab\u00a0intensive efforts\u00a0\u00bb to figure out what happened. Samsung will share the report about the Note 7 \u00ab\u00a0soon,\u00a0\u00bb he said.
\u00ab\u00a0Despite our setbacks, we have not, nor will we, stop innovating,\u00a0\u00bb Baxter said. \u00ab\u00a0In fact we’ve made significant strides in the US\u00a0\u00bb in terms of market share for TVs, refrigerators, washing machines and other devices.
Samsung didn’t make Baxter or any other Samsung executives available for comment to CNET after the company’s press conference.
LG’s OLED TVs rule the picture quality roost, but Samsung says its new QLEDs are brighter with better color.
The Galaxy Note 7 , one of Samsung’s most high-profile phones, blew up in its face last fall, suffering multiple recalls and bans by airlines before flickering out with a final \u00a0\u00bb death update \u00a0\u00bb that essentially bricks the remaining units in the wild. The US carriers will finish rolling out the update this week.
For Samsung to regain customer trust, it first has to figure out what happened and communicate that openly to consumers. It originally tied the Note 7’s overheating to a battery flaw, but the second recall showed it was something more. Samsung has said it’s working with a third-party investigator to figure out what caused the phones’ thermal problems.
Samsung’s CES press conference Wednesday in Las Vegas was its first big event since the Note 7 debacle. The presentation was more muted than previous years. There were no big name stars — like director Michael Bay who imploded two years ago and walked off stage in the middle of his presentation. And there were no big surprises or gadgets that wow’d the audience (especially compared to rival LG, which showed off a wallpaper-thin TV and robots ).
For Samsung, CES was more about refinements to its current products than any major new innovations.<\/p>\n