With COVID-19 cases on the upswing in northern Vietnam, the government has ordered Foxconn and Luxshare Precision Industry to temporarily close their factories there. Both companies manufacture for Apple, which is already enduring supply disruptions.
Le Anh Duong, chairman of the People’s Committee of Vietnam’s Bac Giang Province, told Bloomberg that the companies were acceding to the government’s request. “We hope to resume operations of these factories in two weeks to limit disruptions to the global supply chain,” he said.
As of Tuesday noon, Bac Giang registered 474 COVID-19 cases out of 1,406 local cases nationwide since 27 April, Bloomberg said citing numbers from the Vietnamese health ministry. A post on the government’s website indicated that there were two cases reported over the weekend at Luxshare’s factory in Van Trung Industrial Park.
“We can confirm that there is minimal impact to our operations in Vietnam,” said Foxconn in a statement.
Separately, a Foxconn factory in India recently saw its iPhone 12 production plummet by over 50% as a COVID-19 outbreak there forced infected workers to leave their posts.
It’s reasonable to believe that both these events will put further strain on the supply for Apple products. The Cupertino-based tech giant has already warned about an iPad and Mac shortage as the world continues to suffer from a lack of semiconductor chips.
(Source: Bloomberg.)
