Hon Hai (Foxconn) says its massive assembly plants will be at 100% by the end of March.
From “iPhone Maker Expects China Plants to Return to Normal in Coming Weeks” posted early Tuesday on the Bloomberg News wire.
Chinese companies have begun to return to work, heeding a call to safeguard economic growth — though often not at full capacity. Hon Hai, which also makes products for companies from HP Inc. to Sony Corp., has said it is restarting facilities throughout China in an orderly manner. Other key tech and Apple suppliers with major Chinese operations, such as Quanta Computer Inc., Inventec Corp.and LG Display Co., are also gradually bringing their factories back online.
“As of today, the production resumption has reached 50% of seasonal required capacity. Based on the current schedule, we shall be able to reach full seasonal capacity by the end of March,” Hon Hai said in a stock exchange filing. “There are still plenty of uncertainties which we cannot quantify around the potential impact on the full year.”
My take: “Full seasonal capacity” in March is not the same as 100% in August, but it’s a start.
See also: The Apple 3.0 COVID-19 archives
100% panic is just a response by short-term traders, not long term investors.
If customers have to wait a few additional weeks to get their iPhones delivered, it’s just a delay that everyone would anticipate at this point.
In other words, as has been stated by numerous analysts, some of Apple’s sales and revenue may get pushed out a quarter or two, but their business is perfectly intact.
The 5G network rollout is happening regardless if there’s more scary Covid-19 virus headlines, or Apple’s headquarters gets hit by a meteor. Smart money knows the recent “correction”, though more volatile than usual, was a buying op.
Whether it’s over yet or not doesn’t matter much, as it will be over eventually.