Kyocera Wireless Corp. said it is recalling an additional 40,000 mobile-phone batteries because they are potentially faulty. The company said the situation stems from the previously announced battery recall for its 7135 smart phone.
“The affected customers are being contacted directly,” said Kyocera spokesman John Chier. Chier said the affected batteries are scattered among its Rave, Phantom and Blade series devices. Chier said Kyocera has sold more than 4 million of the devices to date, but 40,000 of the phones include the potentially hazardous batteries. He said the company is working with carriers, including U.S. Cellular and Verizon Wireless, to recall the batteries.
Chier said the batteries in question are from Hong Kong-based Coslight International Group, which also supplied the faulty batteries for its 7135 smart phone. Chier said one of Kyocera’s component suppliers inadvertently included the Coslight batteries in its components after Kyocera had terminated its supply agreement with Coslight. Kyocera in January announced it was recalling 140,000 of its 7135 batteries due to faulty batteries from Coslight and said at the time it would discontinue its relationship with the supplier.
Chier said Kyocera so far has replaced the batteries in about 24,000 of the 40,000 affected phones.
Other phone makers have suffered similar concerns over faulty batteries, which in some cases have exploded.
