Coronavirus wreaks havoc on the electronics industry: Apple, Nintendo, etc.

Coronavirus wreaks havoc on the electronics industry: Apple, Nintendo, etc.

The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic has caused severe delays in the production of parts and products, new reports from Asia have revealed. Companies that have recently announced production impacts include Sharp, Sony, and Nintendo, but there are many others.

Industry analysts warned about this a few days ago, claiming that the coronavirus outbreak would affect supply lines in the electronics industry. Veteran analyst Patrick Moorhead said nine days ago, "I can't imagine a scenario where the supply chain isn't disrupted." He was right.

Japanese video game giant Nintendo announced that disruption of Switch console production due to the coronavirus outbreak was "inevitable." As a result, shipments of the console and its accessories have been delayed. Shipments of games like "Ring Fit Adventure," which is currently out of stock worldwide, will also be delayed.

To make matters worse, Nintendo has not revealed when these delays will be resolved or when.

Sharp, a display and electronics company, has declared that the impact of the virus outbreak is significant, though difficult to quantify at this time; according to Gizmochina, Sharp vice president Katsumi Nomura announced that if "there is no sign of a recovery of the epidemic in the near future," the company is considering moving its production lines out of China entirely. ... he announced that the company is considering moving its production lines out of China altogether.

In a statement to Business Insider, industry analyst Jefferies warned that PS5 and Xbox Series X shipments could also be affected.

"If major supply chain participants for the PS5 and Xbox Series X are significantly disrupted, leading to a quarter delay for some games, limited launch window inventory will be a bigger problem," Jefferies said. The company argues that "this is noteworthy given the marketing, competition, and simultaneous launch of games planned for the next generation of consoles."

As the coronavirus spreads from Wuhan, the list of affected companies continues to grow. Companies whose factories and suppliers have been forced to shut down range from appliance makers like Apple, Samsung, and LG, to electronics manufacturers like Electrolux, to automakers like Toyota, Jaguar, Land Rover, and even Tesla.

Sony, the world's largest manufacturer of camera sensors, has also been alarmed by the disruption of parts supply and manufacturing due to the coronavirus. According to the Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei, the company warned investors that if the virus does not subside soon, production of image sensors and related electronics "could be severely affected."

The disruption will most likely affect smartphone sensors. That means it will affect many companies like Apple and Huawei; according to Petapixel, Sony manufactures half of all image sensors and 70% of all smartphone image sensors. If this trend continues to grow rapidly, the impact will be enormous.

Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said, "Depending on the future progress of the virus, we cannot rule out the possibility of an enormous impact on the production and sales supply chain of our image sensor and electronics businesses. He added, "At this point, we cannot properly assess how (Sony) will be able to supply products and other products."

As far as we know, there does not appear to be any immediate slowdown. Coronavirus infections continue to spread and show no signs of stopping. Some observers and news organizations have accused China of hiding the true scale of the viral outbreak.

Official government statistics put the number of infected people in mainland China at over 24,000 and the number of deaths at over 560. However, according to Taiwan News, software company Tencent may have accidentally leaked the true number of deaths and infections, which would put the number of infected at 154,023 and the number of deaths at 24,589.

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