SEOUL: Samsung Electronics announced on Sunday that on July 7 it will release in South Korea a refurbished version of its controversial smartphone Galaxy Note 7, which was recalled last year after several cases of these handsets catching fire.

A total of 400,000 units of the refurbished smartphone, named the Galaxy Note 7 Fan Edition, will go on sale at around $600, according to a company statement.

Samsung was forced to suspend the production and sales of the Galaxy Note 7 due to repeated incidents of the devices blowing up, which, subsequent investigations showed, was caused by a manufacturing fault in the battery, Efe news reported.

The fiasco involving Samsung's flagship smartphone led to the company incurring operating losses of around 6.1 trillion won ($5.2 billion).

The redesigned Galaxy Note will have completely updated software as well as a lower-capacity battery compared to the original model after attempts to develop a long-lasting but small battery were found to be partly to blame for the phones catching fire.

Following the smartphone's recall last year, Samsung received a large number of petitions from environment groups asking it to repair and reuse the 4.3 million Note 7 handsets that had been produced.

In March this year, Samsung agreed to recycle the faulty models and launch them again for sale. The South Korean electronics firm is expected to launch the Galaxy Note 8, successor to the Note 7, in August in New York.