Samsung Says 85 Percent of Note 7 Phones in U.S. Are Replaced

(Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co. said about 85 percent of its recalled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones in the U.S. have been replaced. The company also announced an expansion to the U.S. of a software patch intended to encourage the return of the remaining devices.

Samsung said Friday that the patch caps the Note 7’s battery life capacity at 60 percent and frequently notifies users of the recall. The company has urged the return of the phones since early October when reports surfaced of the devices overheating and catching fire. The patch has already been issued in Europe and South Korea.

Samsung’s program allows customers to take the Note 7s back to their carrier in exchange for another Samsung smartphone or a refund toward a competing phone, such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

In October, Samsung officially announced it was stopping sales of the Note 7 without identifying the exact cause of the problem. Investigators have determined issues with the Note 7’s battery architecture led to the incidents, Bloomberg News has reported.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Dan Reichl