Conspiracy theories. Samsung phone blasts

The results of high-speed computed tomography of the lithium-ion battery cell 15 seconds before the accident (above) and 1 second before the accident (below). Source: “ In-operando high-speed tomography of lithium-ion batteries during thermal runaway ” research paper, Nature Communications 6, Article number: 6924 (2015), doi: 10.1038 / ncomms7924 (publicly available)

In the second half of August, the real hysteria in the media began after the spontaneous combustion of Galaxy Note 7 phones.

Owners of any electrical appliances know that batteries always heat up with heavy use. This is a completely natural property of batteries. At the same time, the engineer will tell you that any device with a lithium-ion battery may explode when used in certain conditions. As the results of high-speed X-ray computed tomography and radiography of lithium-ion batteries show, a superheated lithium-ion battery creates a kind of chain reaction that can lead to an explosion. This applies not only to phones, but in general any gadgets. The task of designers is to introduce safety measures that minimize the likelihood of fire, although it is impossible to reduce it to zero.

In practice, such explosions of Li-Ion batteries occur rarely, but they occur regularly . According to official statistics from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, since 2002, there have been 43 recalls of goods from the market due to defective lithium-ion batteries. The story of the Galaxy Note 7 is not at all some extraordinary story, but quite an ordinary technical problem.
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As is the case with the notorious suicides at the Foxconn factory, the law of large numbers works here. Remember, what was a tantrum with "mass suicides" at Foxconn factories, allegedly due to poor working conditions? From January to May 2010, 10 suicides occurred at Foxconn in Taiwan. Hell up, that poor Chinese sacrifice their lives by collecting the technique of the iPhone and iPad. They say, working 12 hours a day for $ 150 a month is unbearable, people do not stand up and suicide.

But it looks completely different if you look at the numbers. Namely, that in the Taiwan “plant” Foxconn, which is the world's largest factory for the production of computer components, 330,000 people worked. The average suicide rate among Chinese is 14 per 100,000 people per year. Although people at the age of 65+ reduce their scores with life much more often than young people, therefore, we can estimate the normal suicide rate among young people at about 10 per 100,000 people per year. Thus, over the past 147 days from the beginning of the year, there should have been (330000/100000) * 10 * 147/365 = 13.3 deaths. But in reality only 10 happened, which is significantly below average.

That's all the explanation.

Nevertheless, public opinion is difficult to rationalize, so Foxconn chose not to argue, but to stop the conflict, raise wages and improve working conditions, and later announced a mass replacement of workers on the conveyor with robots .

So what's the problem? Who is behind this hysteria with the "massive" explosions of Samsung smartphones?

First, let's look at the general background, when stories began to be thrown into the media. The very same Galaxy Note 7 immediately after the release was considered the best Samsung smartphone in the history of the company. Some called it absolutely the best smartphone on the market.

And here suddenly - a story with explosions, after which the company was forced to announce a large-scale recall of smartphones , to stop the production of smartphones Note 7, to cease sales. Brand Note 7 is finally buried. "The best in the world" smartphone will always leave the market. Full fiasco. The absolute victory of the "unknown" enemy.

Immediately, we note that the actions of Samsung were only partly forced. They can be called “overreaction”, which risk managers recommend using in order to completely and completely eliminate potential risks. As in the case of Foxconn, it is better to stop fighting and immediately surrender than correct the damage to the brand for years, especially since this damage may be irreparable. If you do not correct the situation quickly and dramatically, then the enemy will win not a small victory in a local battle, but a big victory in a global battle. In this case, the Samsung brand may be permanently labeled as a “manufacturer of exploding phones”. In the perspective of several years, this may lead to a significant loss of market share, a decline in sales, and in a more distant future - even to the complete abandonment of the company from the production of smartphones. To ensure that this is not guaranteed, Korean risk managers stopped the problem, giving away only “one city”, that is, only the Note 7 brand.

Purely mathematically it’s better to lose a couple of billion dollars guaranteed than to get a ten percent chance of a hundred times greater losses.

In the Galaxy Note 7, the company reduced the size of the smartphone by increasing the battery capacity. It was obviously a rather risky step.

Model	Battery size	Battery capacity	Battery capacity	Energy density
Galaxy Note 7	97.6 × 37.5 × 4.9 mm	13.48 Wh	17,934 cm 3	0.75164 Wh / cm 3
Galaxy Note 4	97.78 × 41.27 × 5.59 mm	12.40 Wh	22.55778 cm 3	0.5497 Wh / cm 3
Galaxy Note	67.37 × 51.81 × 6.3 mm	9.25 Wh	21,98977 cm 3	0.42065 Wh / cm 3

The increased risk due to a decrease in volume and the law of large numbers did not work in favor of the Korean corporation. Although 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s were sold, several dozen cases of battery fires attracted very close media attention.

Apparently, Samsung has still not figured out the exact cause of the ignition of smartphones even after installing batteries from another manufacturer.

Who benefits from hitting Samsung by blowing a scandal? Just look at the statistics of sales of smartphones in the world just before the release of Galaxy Note 7.

Company	Sales, I quarter. 2016 (thous.)	Market share, I quarter 2016	Sales, I quarter. 2015 (thous.)	Market share, I quarter 2015
Samsung	81,186.9	23.2%	81 122,8	24.1%
Apple	51 629.5	14.8%	60 177.2	17.9%
Huawei	28,861.0	8.3%	18 111.1	5.4%
Oppo	16 112.6	4.6%	6,585.1	2.0%
Xiaomi	15 048.0	4.3%	14,740.2	4.4%
Other	156,413.4	44.8%	155 561.4	46.3%
Total	349,251.4	100.0%	336 297.8	100.0%

As you can see, quite unpleasant things are happening on the market for one American company with a fruit name. The first place with a large margin strengthened for itself ... guess who. Right, Samsung. In second place is the company Apple, which is quite far behind. Even worse for the apple company, Samsung’s backlog has increased significantly over the past year. Apple sales for the year decreased from 60.2 to 51.6 million units. And it is in a growing market !

What can I say, the story of the explosions of Samsung came at an incredible time.