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Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung's mobile division, said an internal investigation revealed that bad battery cells had caused some of the devices to catch fire, according to the Associated Press. Koh did not specify which of the company's two battery suppliers had produced the batteries.

The company has sold over 1 million units since the smartphone debuted exactly two weeks ago, and manufactured another 1.5 million more units. The unsold devices will be replaced with new versions modified so that they would not be affected by the exploding battery problem.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to the exchange program as a recall.

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