During a question-and-answer session with financial analysts following release of its earnings on Tuesday, Sony executives were asked about the status of the massive, 10-million unit laptop battery recall that started last year after notebooks running Sony battery packs started overheating and, in some cases, blowing up.
According to a transcript, Takao Yuhara, Sony's corporate executive and senior vice president of investor relations, provided an answer that was a little difficult to follow but nonetheless indicates the company is not yet out of the woods. Yuhara suggested it's almost on track for an estimated "return rate" of about 50 percent by month's end, including battery packs used by vendors such as Dell, Apple and Toshiba.
Millions of batteries could still be unaccounted for under that scenario.
The other big question, though, is whether there will be long-term damage to Sony's notebook battery business as a result of the controversial recall. Yuhara sounded more hopeful than confident, saying that none of the big vendors have currently changed their orders for PC batteries. He added, "but in the future this is very hard to tell what's going on because most of the companies have the double resources of those batteries. But we hope they would continue to press orders of batteries to Sony. And, that's all."
The recall has cost Sony at least $430 million to its bottom line.
