Samsung has begun investigating an incident where its newly released Galaxy S III smartphone reportedly exploded when charging in a user's car in Ireland.
"Samsung is aware of this issue and will begin investigating as soon as we receive the specific product in question," the company said on its official blog. "Once the investigation is complete, we will be able to provide further details on the situation. We are seriously committed to providing our customers with the safest products possible and are looking into this seriously."
Details and pictures of the incident were first publicized this week by Engadget. The owner of Samsung's new handset originally posted their story and pictures in an online forum in Ireland.
"Driving along today with my Galaxy S3 in my car mount when suddenly a white flame, sparks and a bang came out of the phone," user "dillo2k10" wrote. "I pulled in to look at my phone, the phone burned from the inside out. Burned through the plastic and melted my case to my phone. The phone kept working but without any signal."
They went on to say that there was "no confirmation" that the incident was the fault of the Galaxy S III itself. They admitted the issue could have been caused by their car mount or the car's heating system.
The Galaxy S III is Samsung's new flagship Android-based smartphone. It launched in Europe on May 29, and debuted on all four major carriers in the U.S. this week.
Expectations for the Galaxy S III are high as its predecessor, the Galaxy S II, reached 20 million sales worldwide in 10 months. The latest Galaxy S phone has a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, a 1.4-gigahertz processor, one gigabyte of RAM, and available capacities of 16, 32 and 64 gigabytes.