There was 2.5 million devices recalled but that includes unsold inventory. Around 1 million estimated sold in USA. 200,000 in China.
As someone pointed out ... in the USA the N7 was on sale 34 days total. In that time around 94 'reported' failures happened equating to 3 a day in the USA.
Had it launched in Europe where there is greater population and potential sales that could be double that number in Europe alone.
Essentially comparatively to any other smartphone or LiPo battery device 3 a day in America alone (and that number would have presumably escalated had they been on wider sale after the first recall, they were not) is ridiculously high.
Factor in the potential escalation of incidents from more devices in America had it been kept on sale (more devices sold = likely more reported incidents as the issue was not resolved) and throw Europe and India into the mix had they managed to get launched there and you had a potentially unprecedented level of failures going forward.
If we think the amount of failure coverage the device got was excessive now, imagine had it continued in all territories for another month or two unabated (as Samsung clearly did not fix this after first recall at all).
Imagine If the Note sold similar numbers to the standard Galaxy S or iPhone ranges, and in that 30 days it sold 10 million units in that period, we would based on the trajectory defined so far, be looking at around 30+ incidents a day of devices exploding/frying.
Thanks. It would be nice if Samsung would post actual numbers. Sometimes I get the feeling it is worse than it appears, other times it looks over-blown.