Japanese flagship companies Toyota and Sony are in crisis due to a series of quality problems. They are trying to improve product quality with Sony considering adding more development lead time, but for the moment their troubles are a boon for Korea’s Samsung, LG and Hyundai Motor in competition with their Japanese rivals.

The Asian Wall Street Journal on Thursday said Japan’s largest automaker Toyota is slamming the brakes on ambitious growth plans due to a surge in recalls and considering adding three to six months to the development lead time of two or three years. That means Toyota may delay the introduction of its new Sienna minivans and Avalon sedan. Last month, three Toyota officials were indicted on charges of concealing a suspected faulty steering part in the Hilux Surf recreational vehicle for more than eight years. What’s worse, Toyota finds itself in trouble over quality issues in the U.S. market, where the number of its recalled cars stood at 2.2 million last year, more than 10 times the 200,000 cars recalled in 2003.

Sony, the no. 2 in the global rechargeable battery market, is swamped in battery recalls as Apple joined rival Dell, the world’s largest PC maker, on Thursday in recalling its notebooks, affecting 1.8 million batteries for notebook PCs produced by Sony. The batteries overheat to the point where some users have suffered burns. The recall affects lithium-ion batteries in three specific notebook models sold between October 2003 and August 2006: the 12-inch iBook, 12-inch PowerBook and 15-inch PowerBook. Dell earlier issued a recall last week which affected 4.1 million batteries for its notebook PCs manufactured by Sony. The recall will cost Sony up to 30 billion yen (W250 billion) and deal a blow to its market share.

Korean manufacturers of rechargeable batteries, Samsung SDI (the world’s third largest) and LG Chem (the world’s sixth largest) expect to benefit from their Japanese rival’s misfortune. Lee Kwang-hoon, an analyst at Hanwha Securities, says Samsung SDI, which is in hot pursuit of Sony, will be able to become the world’s no. 2 in the global rechargeable battery market in the second half of this year thanks to the recall.

(englishnews@chosun.com )