Toshiba to recall 340,000 Sony-made laptop batteries

09/19/06 - newratings.com

LONDON, September 19 (newratings.com) – Toshiba Corp (TOSH) Tuesday announced that is recalling 340,000 laptop batteries made by Sony Corp from across the globe, marking the third recall of faulty batteries made by the latter company in less than 40 days.

The Tokyo-based company said that batteries used in its Dynabook and Dynabook Satellite laptops manufactured between March and May this year are being recalled since the battery packs can unexpectedly run out of power under normal operating conditions. While declining to provide the number of complaints received by Toshiba, its spokeswoman, Keisuke Ohmori, said that the faulty batteries would not cause fires and that the recall is not directly related to the ones made by Dell and Apple Computer last month.

Ohmori also refused to provide an estimate of the cost of the replacement and refrained from commenting on whether Toshiba would ask Sony to foot the bill. The company said, however, that its earnings for the current year would not be affected by the recall.

The recall involves 100,000 laptop batteries in the US, 45,000 in Japan and the rest in the other parts of the world, Toshiba added. The company said that the faulty batteries would be replaced for free. Dell and Apple Computer had earlier last month had recalled a total of 5.9 million Sony-made batteries from across the world, saying that they could produce smoke and catch fire.