Hitachi Ltd. said yesterday it will recall 16,000 batteries made by Sony Corp. for laptop computers, joining a growing list of PC makers recalling Sony batteries.

Hitachi is in talks with Sony about who will foot the bill to replace the lithium-ion batteries, but the number is too small to have any impact on Hitachi earnings, Hitachi spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi said.

The batteries were mostly used in laptops shipped to businesses, mostly in Japan, he said.

In the past two months, computer makers Dell Inc., Apple Computer Inc., Lenovo, IBM, Toshiba Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd have recalled Sony batteries, which Sony has said can on rare occasions overheat and catch fire.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.