Coronavirus to continue to affect Apple through to April
For a large portion of 2020 so far, the plight of the Coronavirus has impacted many factions of normal life. From delays, to health warnings. Apple is not immune from these affects either, with store closures across China for the past few weeks, and low inventory levels of products such as AirPods and others. However, this seems set to continue into April with targets for mass production of the rumoured low cost iPhone 9 (or SE 2) and several major product lines being missed according to the Japanese site Nikkei. This means low stock of products, AirPods Pro for example are showing March delivery dates in many countries, with in-store stock very low or out of stock.
iPhone suppliers are said to operating currently at 30% to 50% capacity, and to overcome this, more labor and transportation is needed, but due to the outbreak and strict restrictions, this is not possible currently.
Apple was said to be planning mass production of the low-cost iPhone this month, but sources quoted by Nikkei suggest that meeting that target is very challenging and production could be pushed back all the way until the month of March. This week it emerged that a possible Apple event set to be hosted in March, where it said Apple is planning to unveil its new low cost iPhone to the world. Although the production of the device is said to be suffering due to the ongoing outbreak, Apple is set to still release and unveil the iPhone on time, and may possibly push back the order date to counteract the production delays.
The suppliers are doing their best to produce and ship the cheaper iPhone within four weeks, the delay cannot be too long, otherwise it will affect the sales strategies of Apple’s new products in the second half of this year a source had told Nikkei.
Apple was hoping to produce 80 million iPhone units in the first half of this year, with 15 million of those iPhones the new cheaper model, but with this new development and delay, these numbers are uncertain. Only yesterday, Apple announced it was not going to meet its revenue goals for the March quarter due to constrained iPhone supplies and low customer demand for Apple products in China amid the outbreak. Many are afraid of going outside due to the high infection rate in the region, and that plus the closure of Apple stores, has meant very low demand.
Factories are now counting on having more employees back at work as soon as Monday., when a quarantine period for those who returned from the outside provinces will end. Travel logistics are rumoured to be a headache at the moment, as suppliers need to change truck drivers when crossing provincial borders due to the imposed quarantine requirements in place.
Coronavirus has infected more than 73,000 people as of today, and has killed 1,870 people, a vast majority of deaths being within China.