Officials are still working hard to get ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, and while the situation is having a serious impact on global health, Sony is reporting that an unexpected effect may be a serious disruption of the camera industry, as the quarantine in China will affect the company’s production and sales supply chains.
Sony reported the news in a recent conference with investors, in which they detailed that the effect may be substantial enough to “negate [their] revised earnings outlook” and saying: “depending on the future progress of the virus, we cannot deny that our production and sales supply chain for the image sensor and electronics business could be affected enormously.”
While the company is not yet sure of the full impact, they project the largest effect will be on smartphone image sensors and parts, as well as parts for their popular Playstation 4 line. The company did not specifically address their professional-level cameras, though considering Sony lenses are produced in China, it is reasonable to expect some sort of impact to the higher-level lines. Given how many devices Sony sensors appear in, it would not be surprising to see the effect ripple to other brands in the industry. Sony will likely provide an update once they can make more specific projections.