November 22, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics on Jan. 19 said it did not intentionally slow down the performance of its older smartphone models to influence consumers to buy new ones, denying accusations by an Italian antitrust body that recently opened a probe into Samsung and Apple.

“There is nothing to say regarding the probe. As we previously announced, Samsung did not slow down older models with software updates,” a Samsung spokesman said. 

On Jan. 18, the Italian watchdog said it has started investigating allegations that Apple and Samsung had deployed software updates to slow their smartphones to force customers to buy new handsets.

The smartphone makers did not notify their customers of the possible performance degradation of the updates and allegedly violated four separate articles of the Italian consumers’ code, according to the watchdog’s statement.

If found guilty, the two companies could face multimillion euro fines.

Apple has admitted that it had slowed down older versions of the iPhones to protect against problems that can be caused by ageing batteries, such as abrupt restarts. Apple’s software updates affected the iPhone 6, 6S, SE and 7.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)