Samsung to announce cause of Galaxy Note 7 fire on January 23

Samsung Electronics said today it will announce on January 23 the reason why its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones overheated and caught fire.

The announcement will be livestreamed in Chinese, English and Korean on its websites. Koh Dong-jin, Samsung's mobile president, will give details of the probe.

The Galaxy Note 7 was a fiasco for the world's largest smartphone maker. Samsung recalled and eventually discontinued it after numerous reports of it overheating and bursting into flames.

Initially, Samsung said it found a small error in the manufacturing process for some of the batteries in the phones was to blame.

It replaced the phones with a new battery but those replaced phones also overheated and caught fire, prompting Samsung to pull the phones from the market. That cost Samsung at least USD 5 billion.

The announcement comes after a South Korean court dismissed yesterday a request by prosecutors to arrest Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong heir.

Lee, the conglomerate's heir and de facto head, is under investigation for alleged bribery in connection with an influence-peddling scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.