Samsung Australia who are weeks away from a major smartphone launch are facing the potential of limited supply after their factories in Vietnam that manufacture half their smartphone supply have been shut down due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
Several Vietnamese factories such as Samsung and the likes of Nike and Adidas have been shut down by the Vietnamese Government Health Department, creating new supply problems for brands shipping goods into the Australian market.
Samsung suspended operations after detecting cases of coronavirus at their facilities, the country’s health ministry said on Wednesday.
Samsung Electronics halted work at three plants in Ho Chi Minh City out of 16 total and temporarily cut its workforce to 3,000 from 7,000, according to a post on the ministry website.
It said the South Korean company, which makes roughly half its smartphones in Vietnam, found 46 COPVID-19 infections and will introduce a plan for workers to try and continue working at the factories shortly.
The ministry’s announcement follows similar COVID-related disruptions that hit Apple and Samsung vendors in northern Vietnam in May and comes as the country battles its worst-yet outbreak of the disease.
Nikkei Asia contacted Samsung Vietnam, but the company was not able to immediately provide a comment for this story.
Vietnam is one of the world’s biggest exporters of electronics and the shutdown of expected to spread as companies rush to comply with the new Ho Chi Minh City directive regarding staff living arrangements.
After the latest outbreak began on April 27 and forced industrial parks to close in northern Vietnam, the government added factory workers to its vaccine priority list, dispensing jabs at companies including Intel and Samsung.
The Southeast Asian country has only inoculated about 4% of its 100 million population.
