Pegatron, a Taiwanese company that partnered with Apple to assemble the iPhone, was forced to stop production at two of its factories in Shanghai, China.
They had to take this step to comply with a number of restrictions related to the crazy Corona cases in Shanghai. As is known, China is currently implementing a number of strict rules due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in China.
The strict restrictions had an impact on both Pegatron and Apple. According to a Nikkei Asia report, the closed Pegatron factory was their only manufacturing hub, and Pegatron is currently responsible for approximately 20-30% of the components of all iPhones.
Not only two factories in Shanghai were closed. The Pegatron factory in Kunshan City also stopped production due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in China. Pegatron hopes to resume production in the near future, although they don't know when.
Besides Pegatron, there is also another Apple partner in Shanghai that had to stop its production, namely Quanta which is a MacBook builder. Apple itself has not issued a statement regarding this issue, as quoted by us from The Verge, Wednesday (13/4/2022).
Since the pandemic, component supply chain problems have continued to occur and have an impact on many companies in various industries. Including the global shortage of chips, which is still happening today and has an impact on almost all industries.
Previously there was also Tesla which closed its factory in Shanghai due to these strict restrictions.
As is well known, China is sticking to its 'Zero COVID-19' policy, which aims to eliminate cases of Corona virus infection through strict lockdown, mass testing, and travel restrictions.
However, the policy has come under pressure since March as more than 100,000 cases in Shanghai have led to the lockdown of the city's 25 million residents. This has sparked widespread public anger over food shortages and inflexible policies to send anyone who tests positive for coronavirus to quarantine centres.