Let’s face it, this world is all about Smartphones.  Everyone has one.  Everyone is on one, seemingly, at all hours of the day.

We use them to communicate (duh) with others, to search for restaurants, hotels, etc. etc., we use them to order things, to take photographs…you name it.

The two big smartphone companies, of course, are Apple and Samsung.

As most of you know, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was their big new release of the year…

The phone was released and had incredibly good reviews.  It sold well.

And then, of course, came the problems…

For those who live under a rock, it turned out the phone had a very real, and very scary problem: It could overheat to the point where it caught fire.  Several reports came to light of this danger, including one report of a man whose Samsung phone exploded while in his pants and allegedly badly burned him.

The reports built and built and Samsung was slow to deal with the issue.  They eventually told people to return their phones for a replacement, but the replacement phones’ release wasn’t specified, irritating clients who wanted a “safe” version of the phone.  Further, there was confusion between the various cell phone companies and Samsung regarding the specifics of the return/replace policy.

Then the replacement phones showed up and things looked to turn, at least a little bit.for the better.

Until, that is, reports surfaced that a few of the replacement phones also burned up.

Now, Samsung has officially killed off the Note 7…

Samsung ends production of Galaxy Note 7 smartphone

According to the above article, by Charles Riley and K. J. Kwon and presented on CNNmoney, the company stands to lose a bundle because of this (I bolded the mind-boggling profit loses):

Giving up on the Note 7 will be costly. Analysts at Nomura estimate the total hit could reach $9.5 billion in lost sales and wipe out $5.1 billion of profit.

What’s even more eye opening is what comes in the very next paragraph of that same story:

But Samsung, which has a market value of about $194 billion and annual sales of $179 billion, should be big and profitable enough to weather the loss of one model.

So…I guess it’s all good?!

Why did I get into writing when I could have gotten into making smartphones?!?