Sony apologises to consumers for its battery problems

24 October 2006

Sony has apologised to customers for the inconvenience caused by the global recall of potentially faulty PC batteries. From August this year the Japanese electronics giant has recalled about 9.6 million batteries worldwide, after discovering a risk that lead to overheating and even catching fire.

While the company says it apologised for the anxieties the fault had caused, it also stressed that the recall was designed to put consumers'' minds at rest and address their concerns. "This is not a safety issue," a Sony spokesman said.

Sony also announced having carried out improvements in the production, design and inspection of the lithium-ion batteries that eliminated any further risk.

Sony is offering to replace 3.5 million battery packs for PCs made by Toshiba, Fujitsu, Sharp, Hitachi and Gateway, as well as those for its own line of Vaio laptops. Dell, Apple and Lenovo had earlier recalled 6.1 million batteries.

Analysts do not expect the recalls to hurt the Japanese giant in a significant way.

Sony also says that it has no plans to withdraw from the battery business, but could ask other manufacturers to provide some of the replacements, as it did not have the capacity to supply all the recalled batteries by itself.