The death toll has risen to about a 1,000 in China as per recent reports & this epidemic is slowly & gradually taking many lives in all the affected areas. Not just lives, it has affected many other sectors as well. China is one of the most famous places known for manufacturing smartphones, but this time due to the health emergency that has spread like wildfire around nations, it has spoiled China’s manufacturing industry as well.
It was expected by one of the top smartphone vendors of China Huawei that after years of decreasing sales, it would roll out 5G plans this year which would help & give a boost to the world’s biggest smartphone market.
Because China & many other nations are at a receiving end of the deadly Coronavirus, the production sector has stopped working & a lot of retail shops have also been closed down for an extended period. Production is not likely to get resumed fast looking at the scenario of the country due to the virus outbreak.
Research firm Canalys in a quote said last week that planned product launches by vendors will be delayed or cancelled as also China doesn’t allow huge public events. And, this will make vendors change their roadmaps for product launches & will take time to do that, which might diminish 5G shipments. The firm also expects that the smartphone shipments in China may get cut to half as compared to last year. While another research firm IDC predicts that it can drop by 30%.
In similar news, Foxconn that assembles iPhones also struggles to get back to work completely making Apple extend their retail store closures in China as reported last week. They have not yet finalised the opening dates. Although Foxconn resumed production at a plant in Zhengzhou after receiving approval by the government yesterday & reopening a major plant in the southern city of Shenzhen, still many of its factories are yet to resume operation work.
Huawei depends on third-party manufacturers for its smartphone production, but the factories have not been working in full capacities & have not yet resumed work. This causes more delays for launching new products in the market, according to analysts. However, the biggest smartphone vendor clarified on the same saying its manufacturing capacity is “running normally.”
An IDC analyst, Will Wong in a statement quoted, “The delays in reopening factories and the labour return time will not only affect shipments to stores, it will also affect the product launch times in the mid- and long-term.”
