Sony Recalls 90,000 Vaio Batteries

by , 1:15 PM EDT, October 17th, 2006

Sony on Tuesday said that it will recall 90,000 Vaio laptop batteries in Japan and China, bringing the total batteries being recalled by the company to nearly eight million. Between that and a price cut for the upcoming PlayStation 3 videogame console, it said on its Web site that it may have to change its earnings forecast, according to Reuters.

Dell, Apple, Lenovo and IBM, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Fujitsu are currently taking part in the worldwide laptop battery recall, which is the largest of its kind to ever affect consumer electronics. Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida told Reuters that he is concerned about the potential damage to his company's brand image and sales as a result of the recall.

"We need to stock 830,000 new batteries as quickly as possible to respond to customers' replacement requests in a timely matter," he said. "The issue is whether Sony is capable of supplying enough batteries that would allow us to respond to customer demand properly ... It appears to be quite difficult."