Nokia Recalls 46 Mln Cell Phone Batteries

About 15 percent of batteries manufactured with the BL-5C label are defective in a way that could cause them to short out and overheat while charging.

Hot on the heels of Toshiba’s recent recall of Sony batteries, Nokia issued its own recall for batteries used in its mobile phones on Tuesday. Like many of the lithium-ion batteries recalled lately, the defective BL-5C batteries are prone to overheating under certain circumstances.

The batteries in question were manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. between December 2005 and November 2006, representing 46 million of the 300 million batteries Nokia sold with the BL-5C label. Approximately 100 incidents of overheating worldwide sparked the recall, making the chances of failure for an individual consumer very low. Every incident occurred during charging when the batteries managed to short circuit.

Nokia will voluntarily replace any of the batteries produced within the window that would make them potentially defective, although the company’s press release makes it clear that the remote chance of a problem does not make it a necessity. Nokia’s recall page allows consumers to enter their batteries’ identification numbers in order to determine if they are eligible for the recall.