Matsushita Stock Hit by Nokia Battery Recall

Matsushita Electric shares fell to a two-year low after Nokia offered to replace as many as 46 million handset batteries produced by the company on concerns they may overheat. Matsushita, the world’s largest consumer-electronics maker - more widely known as Panasonic - saw it’s shares drop 5 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to 2,015 yen which is the lowest closing price since October 2005.

According to this article on Bloomberg, Yasuo Nakane, a Tokyo-based analyst at Deutsche Securities, estimated the cost to replace the faulty batteries will be as much as 40 billion yen ($341 million).

Of the 46 million batteries potentially affected, about 160,000 were sold in Japan, according to a joint statement by Matsushita, Nokia Japan and carriers NTT DoCoMo Inc. and Softbank Corp., which offer Nokia handsets.

Softbank, which has three Nokia models, said 135,916 batteries will be affected by the recall, according to Naoki Nakayama, a spokesman. About 33,000 batteries used in DoCoMo’s sole Nokia handset model will be affected, said Makiko Furuta, a spokeswoman for Tokyo-based DoCoMo.

Update:
What did ‘who’ know and when did they know it..?!? This news could be a nasty bit of blowback..