Cell Phone Reviews, News and Blog

Finnish mobile handset giant Nokia Corp (NOK) Tuesday said it would replace a number of customers' phone batteries, after receiving reports of around 100 incidents of overheating from a batch of 46 million.

No serious injuries or property damage has occurred from the defective batteries, according to Nokia, but the company said that the batteries, produced by Japanese manufacturer Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (MC), had overheated and caused short-circuiting on certain phones.
Matsushita, which manufactures hundreds of different electronics goods under the Panasonic brand, made 46 million of the BL-5C batteries for Nokia between December 2005 and November 2006.

Nokia Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson told Dow Jones Newswires that there will be some direct costs resulting from replacing batteries, but that " it's too early to add up what that cost will be."

Simonson added that he expected some of this cost to be taken by Matsushita. " In supplier relationships they bare the responsibility to deliver quality. There will be some costs and some of that will be borne by the manufacturer," he said.

Nokia added that the product advisory doesn't apply to any other Nokia branded batteries, just those produced by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006.
"There's only been one hundred incidents out of 46 million batteries that were produced and there's no material injury or damage to property," said Simonson.

"Statistically it's insignificant," said Simonson, who said the recall was precautionary.
Other electronics equipment manufacturers have also been hit by battery recalls in the previous year. In July, Toshiba Corp (6502.TO) had to recall 10, 000 Sony Corp (6758.TO) batteries used in its laptops, due to fire risks.

That followed a previous recall by Sony of 9.6 million different personal computer batteries in October 2006, which were used by computer makers including Apple Inc (AAPL), Dell Inc (DELL) and Lenovo Group Ltd (0992.HK). The recall is expected to cost Sony around 51 billion yen ($418 million).

"People may ask: 'is this similar to the laptop cases over the last year?' and the answer is 'no.' Those batteries were significantly bigger in terms of the energy they stored," said Simonson.

source: CNN