Sony battery update: Fujitsu adds another 275,000 to the recall

Costs are mounting for the battery manufacturer

4 October 2006 12:12 GMT / By Amber Maitland

Fujitsu joined the worldwide replacement program for Sony batteries with the announcement that it is recalling 287,000 notebook PC batteries.

This brings the total number to 7.5 million batteries, and since Sony is footing the bill for the replacement, the company is going to take a serious hit to its yearly profits.

Sony said after Dell and Apple announced they were recalling batteries in August that those two recalls would cost from ¥20 billion (£90 million) to ¥30 billion (£135 million) but the situation has escalated since then.

Besides Fujitsu, Dell, and Apple, Lenovo, IBM, and Toshiba have all issued a recall. HP and Sony are holding out hope that batteries in their notebooks aren’t affected.

Analysts now put the cost of the battery exchange at around $500 million (£265 million), or half of Sony’s predicted profit for the year ending on 31 March 2007.

Full tags

Hardware, Laptops, Batteries, Sony