Coronavirus threatens AirPods production as stock dwindles
Apple ordered the production of 45 million AirPods units to keep up with consumer demand, but the coronavirus appears to be delivering both extended labor and material shortages.
As the 2019 Novel Coronavirus continues to spread across mainland China, Apple suppliers are reporting that they don't have enough material or labor needed to assemble products.
Apple's AirPods series may be the first to see significant delays and shortages. Apple AirPods Pro, for example, are already seeing delays of a full month on Apple's online store.
Apple had ordered suppliers to produce up to 45 million units to keep up with the demand. However, the coronavirus outbreak forced suppliers to halt operations for two weeks, putting many delays in the supply chain.
"Because of the virus outbreak, it has already been about two weeks since the assemblers have shipped any new AirPods series," a person familiar with the situation told Nikkei Asian Review. "All of the stores and carriers selling Apple products are really counting on suppliers to resume work next week."
Luxshare, Goertek, and Inventec -- the three leading AirPods manufacturers -- halted a majority of production since the Chinese New Year break began. A source told Nikkei that the suppliers have, at most, two weeks' worth of materials for AirPods assembly. The manufacturers will need to wait for component makers across China to restart operations. Any additional delays are likely to cause further problems in the supply chain.
Travel restrictions also threaten production, as many locations are seeking to minimize excessive amounts of travel to prevent the unnecessary spread of disease.
Companies are also worried that employees may bring the viruses into factories, where close-proximity contact could quickly spread the disease across tens of thousands of employees. However, some employers are willing to take the risk. Inventec plans to restart production on February 10.
While AirPods may be the first Apple product to see significant delays and shortages due to the coronavirus, it might not be the only one. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is starting to see disruption in the mobile phone market as a result of the coronavirus, and has slightly dialed back iPhone shipment expectations for the first calendar quarter of 2020.
As the 2019 Novel Coronavirus continues to spread across mainland China, Apple suppliers are reporting that they don't have enough material or labor needed to assemble products.
Apple's AirPods series may be the first to see significant delays and shortages. Apple AirPods Pro, for example, are already seeing delays of a full month on Apple's online store.
Apple had ordered suppliers to produce up to 45 million units to keep up with the demand. However, the coronavirus outbreak forced suppliers to halt operations for two weeks, putting many delays in the supply chain.
"Because of the virus outbreak, it has already been about two weeks since the assemblers have shipped any new AirPods series," a person familiar with the situation told Nikkei Asian Review. "All of the stores and carriers selling Apple products are really counting on suppliers to resume work next week."
Luxshare, Goertek, and Inventec -- the three leading AirPods manufacturers -- halted a majority of production since the Chinese New Year break began. A source told Nikkei that the suppliers have, at most, two weeks' worth of materials for AirPods assembly. The manufacturers will need to wait for component makers across China to restart operations. Any additional delays are likely to cause further problems in the supply chain.
Travel restrictions also threaten production, as many locations are seeking to minimize excessive amounts of travel to prevent the unnecessary spread of disease.
Companies are also worried that employees may bring the viruses into factories, where close-proximity contact could quickly spread the disease across tens of thousands of employees. However, some employers are willing to take the risk. Inventec plans to restart production on February 10.
While AirPods may be the first Apple product to see significant delays and shortages due to the coronavirus, it might not be the only one. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is starting to see disruption in the mobile phone market as a result of the coronavirus, and has slightly dialed back iPhone shipment expectations for the first calendar quarter of 2020.
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In case emotion has made someone overlook my key points: corona virus needs to be a focus for the professionals and if you one fo the few who know someone who is infected you should be pray (or whatever you do) for them, but you should also do that for everyone you know with cancer, the flu, etc. The average person shouldn't be making this their daily focus right now and yet I can't escape talk of it because the media is relentless when it comes to fear focusing. If your focus is that Apple may sell make and sell AirPods then sell your flipping stock you sociopath.
This reminds me of that one friend we all have. You know the one. If you say "I broke my leg" when I fell in a bike crash." He'll say, "Aw man, that's pretty bad. I broke my leg, arm, and my brain pan when I was on a bike that was hit by an 18 wheeler being driven by ninja... who was transporting a great white/orca hybrid that nearly bit me into when the tanker cracked and created a 33 foot tidal wave that nearly drowned me.
As I stated by clearly naming multiple things, they should be caring about "more than one thing" but when you focus on a minimal threat over countless other threats that are of more concern to your personal health then you're not seeing the forest for the trees. Listen to scientists on this matter and stop being reactionary to what the media is selling you.
Compare to that, 2019-nCoV is something of a wild card in terms of how far it will spread and how many deaths it will cause. You said 8,000 deaths this season from the flu, how can you be certain it would not be 8,000,000 deaths alone in a year time from nCoV? Scientists are racing to find out more about 2019-nCoV, and our understanding of the virus and the threat it poses may change as new information becomes available. Based on what we know so far, here's how it compares with the flu.
Severity
So far this flu season, about 1% of people in the United States have developed symptoms severe enough to be hospitalized, which is similar to the rate last season, according to data from the CDC. Of the more than 20,000 cases reported in China so far, about 14% have been classified as severe, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) posted Tuesday (Feb. 4).
Death Rate
So far this flu season, about 0.05% of people who caught the flu have died from the virus in the U.S., according to CDC data. Throughout the outbreak, the death rate for 2019-nCoV has been about 2%.
Transmission
The measure scientists use to determine how easily a virus spreads is known as the "basic reproduction number," or R0 (pronounced R-nought). This is an estimate of the average number of people who catch the virus from a single infected person, Live science previously reported. The flu has an R0 value of about 1.3. A study published Jan. 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) estimated an R0 value for the new coronavirus to be 2.2, meaning each infected person has been spreading the virus to an average of 2.2 people.
Risk of Infection
The CDC estimates that, on average, about 8% of the U.S. population gets sick with the flu each season. It's unknown how the situation with this virus in the U.S. will unfold but with high transmission, without prevention, it can escalate quickly.
Prevention
Unlike seasonal flu, for which there is a vaccine to protect against infection, there is no vaccine for 2019-nCoV.
Exactly my point: why should you be more afraid of nCoV over flu because you can't be certain.
4. We know that the Chinese government is trying to suppress the true reports of what’s happening. Doctors who raise alarm over the severity of the epidemic are summoned to the police and made sign a paper saying that they should stop immediately leaking information about the severity of the situation under the threat of being prosecuted and jailed. That happened to the ophthalmologist who alerted the world of the Coronavirus in the beginning of January. He subsequently got sick during the first week of January by caring for his patients. The Chinese government denied that the Coronavirus could be spread from one person to another even though this doctor got infected in the hospital. Today, this doctor died in the hospital, but as the news spread, the hospital continued to deny that the doctor died and continued to list him in serious condition for hours until they finally admitted that he had died. He was 34 and in perfect health before he got infected. Because he realized what he was dealing with before he was infected, he wore a mask and protected himself in any possible way known to medicine. Yet, he fell victim to this virus.
report significantly higher numbers of dead delivered for cremation. They are saying they had never seen so many people dying every day.
6, The official Chinese statistics lists 31,452 cases (as of this writing) with 632 deaths and 1,341 recovered. Therefore, according to this statistics, over 2% of all reported cases have died, but only a little over 4% have recovered. What is happening to the rest 93+%? We don’t know. If they have not recovered and have not died, most likely many are in serious condition. Because, otherwise, they would be listed as recovered. A viral infection from a flu-like virus normally goes away within 7 days, so we are talking about tens of thousands of people who have not recovered in 7-14 days. The ophthalmologist who died today first reported his symptoms exactly a month ago. So, it took him 30 days to die from this virus. We may see an escalating number of deaths from those who are currently listed as infected but not recovered.
it will affect most forms of electronics and even wide ranging items like automobile parts.
also, people saying it is like the flu and a low death rate are just not paying attention to reality. Word is it has about a 16-17% mortality rate and infects about 83% of people it comes into contact with. Some say it seems to be a genetic engineered bug too. White House in US asked Scientists to check this out. China has a BSL-4 lab in Wuhan and that may be the source of this outbreak.