The worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus has led to major changes for many companies, including Apple and its manufacturing supply partners.
And the hits keep on coming, at least based on the latest report from Nikkei. According to the information at hand, Apple’s major supply partners that help bring the AirPods and AirPods Pro to market may see some negative impact by the coronavirus. That includes Inventec, Luxshare-ICT, and Goertek. These factories have been shut down since the start of the Lunar New Year, but they do plan on opening next week.
Even with that in mind, considering the majority of the factories in the region have been shut down at the same time, components may be hard to come by, at least once the factories get back up and running again.
The report indicates that, at least in the case with the aforementioned supply partners, they will need to wait for fresh supplies until the other factories are operational again, which could lead to a bit of a delay. The report indicates that, “at best”, these factories only have two weeks of supplies on hand to facilitate AirPods and AirPods Pro assembly.
It remains unclear if getting the lights switched back on and employees back in the lines will go smoothly next week, so some are expecting bumps in the road. What’s more, there are still travel restrictions in the area, which could negatively impact available workforces in some of the factories needed to get manufacturing going again.
This could lead to a change of tactics for Apple. The company’s CEO, Tim Cook, recently said that the company plans on ramping up production of AirPods and AirPods Pro to meet demand, which has been strong for the truly wireless headphones.