COVID Lockdowns Cut Apple Supplier Pegatron’s Shanghai Production

16 MAY 2022 - Hey, maybe by the time iPhone adopts USB-C in 2023, problems in the supply chain will be behind us. Right now, we are still way in them. The South China Morning Post posted a piece on Friday saying iPhone supplier Pegatron has cut production in Shanghai. This as COVID-related lockdowns keep popping up.

The good news: Restrictions are expected to be loosened this Friday 20 May. That is when Shanghai expects to hit its “societal zero-Covid-19” goal. The piece says that refers to “a situation when new cases are limited only to people in quarantine.”

So, not exactly an “all clear” then. And who knows when things will get back to normal, assuming “normal” is a thing for which we’re still aiming. According to the report:

More than half of Apple’s 192 suppliers that manufacture on the mainland – including Foxconn Technology Group, Pegatron, Quanta Computer, Wistron Corp and Compal Electronics – have production facilities in lockdown-hit Shanghai and eastern Jiangsu province, according to calculations by the South China Morning Post.

The piece does say that Apple may be able to shift orders to Foxconn, which has largely kept running under a “closed loop” system. Of course, we heard indications last week that even Foxconn may fall prey to the same pandemic, supply chain, geopolitical, and inflationary concerns that have gummed up the works for other manufacturers.