UPDATE: 4.47pm

A spokeswoman for Sony said: "We build all of our devices to a high quality standard and submit them to rigorous testing procedures.

"Tests carried out include free fall, bend, pressure, heat and other simulations to reflect the different uses of our products in the field.

"We are now in direct contact with the customer to investigate the cause of the incident."

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A NEWPORT man has been left with burns on his right hand after his mobile phone battery exploded while he was texting his girlfriend.

Grant Eger, 21, from Malpas Road, was in his bedroom at around 12pm on Monday when he noticed a ticking noise coming from his Sony Xperia T3 phone.

Thinking nothing of the sound, he continued texting his girlfriend of five years, Sophie Harris, 21 – but then he saw sparks coming from the side of the phone.

It was only then Mr Eger, who lives with his grandmother, Vicky Eger, 80, realised something was seriously wrong and dropped his phone.

Recalling the panic, he told the Argus: “I was just scrolling through my phone and as I was scrolling and texting back my girlfriend, I heard a little tick noise like something was going on in the phone.

“When I first started hearing them I didn’t know what they were. I just thought, ‘what the hell is it?’

“The next thing I knew was a spark shot out the side. They were big so my instant reaction was to throw it.

“I threw the phone to the side of my bed.

"It just sparked even more and went up in flames.”

With his bedroom carpet now on fire, Mr Eger quickly picked up the blazing device with his right hand, unlocked his window and then threw the phone out into his back garden.

The phone smashed in the fall and the fire petered out on its own.

Mr Eger then spent eight agonising hours in A&E at the Royal Gwent waiting for treatment for his burns.

Still in shock, he said: “The phone is all smashed at the front and at the back of it all you can see is the battery where it exploded. It’s all in pieces.

“It was so scary. I heard about things like that happening but when it happens to you it sort of opens your eyes to things like that.

“I’ve been working with cars for years and had electric shocks but this is entirely different.

“With Sony, you wouldn’t expect something like that to happen to a phone like that. I won’t touch a Sony phone again – no chance.”

With his right hand now bandaged, Mr Eger is on painkillers and is not due to return to his job at a local supermarket until Monday.

He has bought a new phone, an Alcatel Pixi, for £35, to replace the Sony Xperia, which cost him £180 when it was bought in Argos a year ago, and has covered the damaged carpet with a rug as he said he can’t afford to replace the whole thing.

A spokeswoman for Argos said she would not be making a comment as this would be something Mr Eger would have to bring forward to quality control in-store to see if it was an isolated incident.

She said they would only then comment on it if quality control told them it was "something to worry about".