SEOUL - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Chief Executive Kwon Oh-hyun on Tuesday said the South Korean tech giant must improve, as it reels from the costly withdrawal of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.

Without referring directly to the failure of the fire-prone Note 7s, Kwon said in a statement Samsung employees should look back and ask whether they had been complacent in their work.

"We have a long history of overcoming crises," Kwon said.

"Let us use this crisis as a chance to make another leap by re-examining and thoroughly improving how we work, how we think about innovation and our perspective of our customers."

• READ: Samsung offers mid-range after too hot Note 7

The global smartphone leader and Apple Inc. rival last week said it aimed to recover quickly from the withdrawal of the fire-prone Note 7 in October.

The debacle raised concerns about Samsung's quality control systems and dragged its third-quarter mobile earnings to their lowest level in nearly eight years, but so far no one at the firm has been publicly held responsible.

Samsung is expanding its probe into the Note 7 fires beyond batteries, as it tries to get to the bottom of one of the worst product failures in tech history.