Nokia Recalls 46 Million Cellphone Batteries for Overheating

Courtney Mills

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The Nokia Corporation, the world's largest manufacturer of cellular phones, announced on Tuesday that lithium-ion batteries in nearly 46 million phones would need to be recalled after reports of 100 incidents of overheating. There have been no injuries to date.

Nokia specified that the company's faulty BL-5C battery, a product of the Matsushita Battery Industrial Company, was placed in nearly 46 million units between the years December 2005 through November 2006 in over 50 different Nokia models, from the less advanced Nokia 1100 to the highly advanced N70.

The Matsushita batteries reportedly were manufactured in a Chinese factory. A Matsushita spokesman asserted that it was not a design flaw that led to the recall, but a "flaw in the manufacturing process" that was at the root of the problem.

There have been several reports of these lithium-ion batteries overheating in these phones during recharging. This recall comes directly on the heels of a major recall of Sony notebook computer batteries by Toshiba.

For more information on this subject matter, please review our section on Defective and Dangerous Products.