The agency reported that the cause of the reported explosions had been traced to the battery.

It quoted the official as saying: "The most important thing is the safety of our customers and we don't want to disappoint our loyal customers."

The official told Yonhap that the company would announce the result of its investigation into the issue either by this weekend or early next week.

He said that the problematic batteries were only present in about 0.1% of the devices that had been sold.

Announcement of a recall was unlikely on Friday because Samsung was in talks with Verizon and other business partners.