Coronavirus causes fright for Indian phone, carmakers

Coronavirus outbreak in China could start to disrupt India’s production of smartphones. This spread can delay component shipments that are important for the production of smartphones, reports have said.

India is the world’s biggest smartphone maker after China but is still largely dependent on China for supplies of parts such as cells, displays panels, camera modules and printed circuit boards.

“Those disruptions were already planned but if it gets prolonged, for March and April, production will have serious trouble,” said S N Rai, the co-founder of homegrown smartphone maker Lava.

China’s OnePlus said its Indian operations could manage, in the short term at least.

“We are well covered because we have the entire production in India, we already have enough stock, and even going forward many of the components will anyway be coming directly from other markets,” said Vikas Agarwal, the India head of OnePlus.

However, Beijing has expressed confidence in uprooting the “devil” virus that has been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Giants like Alphabet Inc’s Google and Sweden’s IKEA have closed operations in China.

India’s Tata Motors, which counts China as a major market for its luxury Jaguar Land Rover cars, said on Thursday it was worried about the coronavirus and warned that the outbreak could impact productions and profits.

For now, the industry just hopes the outbreak can be contained within the next two weeks. “If the problem persists beyond February 10, we have a real problem at hand,” said Pankaj Mohindroo, head of the India Cellular & Electronics Association, an industry lobby group.