Dell battery recall could cost over half a billion dollars

Dell recently announced a battery recall and then extended the recall to cover over 4.1 million batteries. Industry experts are warning that the cost of the replacement are likely to cost Dell over half a billion dollars.

The recall affects certain Inspiron, Latitude and Precision mobile workstations and XPS units shipped between April 2004 and 18 July, 2006. Sony manufactured the batteries that are being recalled, a Dell spokesman said.

At the moment, this looks like the largest battery recall in the history of the electronics industry, said Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates. ‘The scale of it is phenomenal.’

Sony is the supplier of the batteries to Dell and has said it will help with some of the costs of the recall.

The recall comes at a bad time for Dell which has had to restate its forecast to the stock market downwards over the past month.

At the same time Dell has also had to offer refunds to customers in China after reportedly shipping less powerful chipsets in its computers than claimed.

Dells stock has been in free fall over the last year falling from $36 to $21.24.