After India’s Prime Minister, Nerandra Modi put the country under a three weeks lockdown, Wistron Crop and Foxconn announced suspension of their production units in the country. This inherently, suspends production of Apple’s iPhones and other devices. The companies’ Indian production units were mainly manufacturing older iPhone models and other devices mostly for domestic market.
In a communique with Bloomberg News, Foxconn said that its production in India is suspended till 14th of April. Similarly, Wistron’s representative also said the company is complying with the government’s orders. Although both companies call the current suspension of production a ‘short-term’ issue, they are uncertain by what date or time frame the production will resume, as it is dependent on what the Indian government decides in the following days.
Neither companies have disclosed which products are affected by production’s suspension. But show resilience and optimism to recover quickly, whenever the lockdown in lifted.
Wistron’s Chairman Simon Lin said on an earnings call on Wednesday that he believes lockdowns in countries where the company operates, including India and Malaysia, will only be a “short-term” issue as Wistron doesn’t have labor-shortage problems there and production can be resumed quickly once restrictions are lifted.
Apple did not comment on the situation when contacted by Bloomberg.
Like other countries, India too announced a nationwide lock to fight the Coronavirus epidemic, but the announcement came unexpectedly which took many by surprise. 1.3 billion people and businesses were not given any prior notification by the government before imposing the lock down, which allowed no time for any preparation or planning. The sheer size of the Indian populace, makes it the biggest isolation effort in the world.
Acknowledging the global health crisis, it can be predicted that the world economy will take a hit whenever the storm spewed by coronavirus settles down. Countries like UAE, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Turkey, USA, UK, Canada and many more are under lock down. All economic and social activities are suspended as people are advised and, if required, forced to stay at home.
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