Foxconn likely to return to production by March

Foxconn is a Taiwanese based company which is the main assembler for some of the devices of the US based tech giant Apple. The coronavirus outbreak in China had forced the company to shut down its manufacturing units during late January, 2020. Since then the factories were shut and the work was also stalled. Foxconn is responsible to assemble Apple’s iPhones and the iPads. After remaining shut doe about two months, the manufacturing unit is expected to return back to a normal pace by the end of March, 2020.

The chairman of the company Liu Young-Way during a meeting with the investors said that there are still many uncertainties and that for now it is not able to judge the impact of the lengthy shut down on a full year earnings. Liu added that the company is expecting a negative impact in some of its core business segments year on year for the three months ending in March. The chairman could not also comment if the first quarter would be profitable.

Official figures have said that cornavirus has so far killed more than 3,100 people so far and 173 deaths have been reported out of China. Nearly 91,000 people have been infected and the majority of the people who are infected are in China. The Foxconn employs about thousands of people and 75 percent of its production capacity is in mainland China.

The company recently said that at present it is producing about 50 percent of its capacity. It is not just Foxconn, but other manufacturing factories in China are also facing the same situation and are struggling to get their units to working again. Millions of people in China are under travel restrictions to prevent the virus. Due to this, there are short of workers and there is also lack of some of the key equipments. So it is not the supply chain but the labor is an issue as people are hesitating to move out of their homes.

Photo Credits: Engineering