“The March 11th tsunami that has devastated Japan is expected to create shortages of Apple’s most popular products for the remainder of the month and through next quarter, as at least two of the company’s core component suppliers in the region have temporarily shut down operations to assess damages,” Katie Marsal reports for AppleInsider.
“Speaking to contacts in Asia last night, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster learned that the production status from Apple’s Japanese-based component suppliers is changing hour by hour, but said that none of those partners have been able to quantify the extent of their damage with any degree of certainty, nor have they set a timeline for when production will resume,” Marsal reports. “In particular, Munster said that Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Co, which he believes is Apple’s primary supplier of BT resin — used in producing printed circuit boards for chips in iPhone and iPad — is temporarily shut down to assess damage related to the earthquake. Similarly, Toshiba, which produces around 40% of the world’s flash memory and supplies a significant portion of that to Apple for its iOS devices, is temporarily shut down for the same reasons.”
Marsal reports, “As such, the analyst expects component delays for some of Apple’s key products, including iPhone 4 and iPad 2, to persist throughout the June quarter.”
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