Apple is closing all stores, corporate offices, and contact centers in mainland China through Feb. 9 due to coronavirus outbreak that has prompted them to shut down all operations to make sure for the safety of all Apple employees located there.
As per our previous article, Apple CEO Tim Cook, donates a sizeable fund to combat the virus, it seems clear that it might be investing more on the fight to make sure they can still provide the demand of the public for their devices.
Apple is one of these companies, as per the tweet of Bloomberg's Mark Guzman, he stated that "Out of an abundance of caution and based on the latest advice from leading health experts, we're closing all our corporate offices, stores and contact centers in mainland China through Feb. 9."
Apple's factories ran by Foxconn. However, it seems to be up and running still. As of Tuesday, they issued a statement that it will still be running on their schedule and will not anticipate any impact on production. The only question is for how long the factories will be up and running as the virus is taking more and more lives.
Coronavirus Update as of Today
As the coronavirus seems to spread over the world, it is not just alarming the public but also affecting companies and businesses worldwide. Productions are already being affected because people don't want to go out anymore due to the fear of catching the virus, which is of the time of writing has no cure yet.
Coronavirus has spread outside of China now and has infected about 14,000 people. Over 26 countries have reported cases that have either been confirmed or still in the process of examinations with now a confirmed case of someone dying of the coronavirus OUTSIDE of China, in the Philippines.
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Companies Feel the Impact of Coronavirus
Companies who rely on the products and workforce from China are now making contingency plans in terms of materials shipped from China to their shores. Companies like H&M closed about 45 stores in China "hurt" their sales in January. They rely on China workforce "a lot."
Businesses in China advise their employees to work from home, for the time being, to prevent them from going out and catching the virus. An example of this company to do this is China's Baidu Inc, which has also delayed the announcement of their 4th quarter results for 2019.
Hyundai Motor, Jaguar, and Land Rover parent Tata Motors either will halt production in that hemisphere for now and hamper productions and hit profits overall. McDonald's closed several hundred of its roughly 3,300 stores in China will also impact on profits but said it would be "fairly small" if the virus stayed contained in China, there might be a change to this opinion since the outbreak is now all over the world.
More and more companies will be affected by this outbreak if and when the outbreak turns into a pandemic, for the meantime, it's almost business as usual around the world and China as well is doing everything that they can.
