Sony has seen its quarterly net profits nosedive by
around 95% following a mammoth laptop battery recall.
The figures were also not helped by the delay in the company’s
introduction of the PlayStation 3 games console, which will now
miss the Christmas market.
Sony’s net profits slumped to 1.7bn yen (£7.6m) for the three
months ending September, down from the 28.5bn yen posted in the
same quarter a year ago.
The company has so far recalled almost 10 million laptop
batteries used in machines from the likes of Dell, Apple, Lenovo
and Toshiba because of fears of a fire hazard, and is bearing the
brunt of the cost.
Sony says it has set aside 51bn yen to deal with the recall, so
profits in the future are also set to be affected. The battery
recall began in August.
The company said it had now made modifications in its production
process to overcome any fire hazard threat in the future.