TOKYO-Sony Corp. said the impact from recalling a total of 1.1 million defective mobile handsets would reach $95.2 million. For the past couple of months, Sony has been forced to recall three types of mobile handsets.
On July 4, Sony announced it would recall 560,000 handsets provided to KDDI because a defect was found on their battery packs. Sony on the same day announced it would send a new battery pack to all the users of the handset at issue. According to Sony, the recalling cost for the 560,000 units of handsets will be $11.9 million.
Sony in May recalled another 126,000 handsets for KDDI because the handsets failed to carry necessary software for the carrier’s next-generation infrastructure called cdmaOne 1x. The handset C101S should have carried the necessary software for dealing with the upgraded system. Sony recalled all the 126,000 units and rewrote the software. Sony said the software rewriting cost would be $3.2 million.
Also in May, Sony recalled another 420,000 handsets for NTT DoCoMo. Because Sony was forced to replace the defective handset SO503i with a new handset, the recalling cost for the handset reached $79.3 million.
Sony will claim the cost as sales, general administrative expenses in its financial report for first-quarter fiscal year 2001 scheduled to be released on July 26.
