You might just have some trouble getting your hands on the iPhone 11
The coronavirus outbreak, which is now being classified as COVID-19, doesn’t discriminate when it comes to disruption, and while we expected it to affect companies with production lines in China such as Apple, it looks like the consequences of the outbreak will be much worse than expected.
The tech company has announced that not only does it not expect to meet its own revenue guidance for Q2 2020 but also that global iPhone supply will be “temporarily constrained” in spite of the fact that its factory partners have reopened. It turns out that restoring output is taking longer than Apple had expected and the company is expecting this to hit its bottom line as a result of supply shortages. Add to that the effects of store closures and reduced retail traffic and it spells out a tough second quarter for Apple.
The company has actually reiterated that the well-being of its workers is its “paramount priority” and that intends to restore operations as safely as possible. It also announced that it would be doubling its donation towards the fight against the coronavirus, though we don’t exactly know what the original figure was so it’s hard to put a dollar value to it.
Its hard to gauge if the outbreak of the virus will have an impact on future product development for Apple, with the Cupertino based company rumoured to be launching the sequel to the iPhone SE in March. We could very well see a delay on the launch, but again, it all depends on how quickly we get on top of the outbreak.
With both supply and demand being affected by the virus, don’t be surprised if you have any trouble getting your hands on the iPhone 11 in the near future.
