What you need to know
- Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has shared details about the impact of coronavirus.
- Kuo didn't make any shipment predictions.
- But he did call out "many uncertainties" about 2020 iPhone sales.
Respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has a new investor note out and he's outlined the issues facing iPhone production during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
In the note picked up by 9to5Mac, Kuo explains which of Apple's manufacturing partners are impacted as well as which iPhones their plants would normally be responsible for producing.
An example of that would be Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory which would normally be tasked with producing iPhone 11 and iPhone 9. The latter has been roundly rumored to have a March launch window, but with the plant currently closed and not expected to re-open early this week, that could now be in doubt.
It's a similar story at the Shenzhen Foxconn plant. That's the factory that would normally be getting ready to begin producing the 2020 iPhones, While the development team didn't stop work over the Chinese New Year, the rest of the plant wasn't scheduled to return until today. That's now been postponed for at least one more week.
Pegatron's Shanghai plant makes iPhone 11 handsets and will also produce the 2020 iPhones. It reportedly resumed work last week. However, the company's Kushan factory was due to restart work today. That is no longer happening, according to Kuo.
While the analyst isn't making any iPhone shipment predictions in his latest research note, he did say that "there are still many uncertainties" surrounding just how many iPhones will be produced this year. There's a very real chance that the number of iPhones being produced during 2020 will be lower than initially expected, all thanks to the coronavirus outbreak that continues to wreak havoc.
