Sony offers apologies for laptop batteries problems

Sony executives today apologised for the global recall of potentially faulty PC batteries but said no heads would roll over the fiasco, the latest in a series of glitches to have tarnished the electronic giant's reputation. Dell, Apple and Lenovo had earlier recalled 6.1m batteries but Sony declined to say how many it would be able to replace alone. The US PC maker Gateway said today it would recall about 35,000 Sony-made lithium-ion batteries, although it stressed it had not identified any problems with its PCs. In addition Sony expanded the recall of batteries included in its own line of Vaio laptop batteries PCs from 90,000 in Japan and China to 250,000 worldwide. Last week Sony was forced to lower its full-year operating profit forecast by 62%, blaming the additional costs on the recall and the decision to cut the price of its PlayStation 3 game console in Japan by about 20%. The firm has set aside 51bn yen (?231m) to pay for the recall, although any further significant recalls could push the figure higher.