Given the economic effect of health hazards of viruses like this on big companies like Apple, I wonder if Apple itself couldn't justify investing into research for treatments and vaccines as a hedge against supply line damage. Makes sense purely in terms of business, doesn't it?<p>Near as I can tell, most of the vaccine development (outside of China) is being funded by charities right now. Drug companies were burned by Ebola investments and are not interesting in working on COVID-19. But if Apple thought they could speed up recovery by even a short time with careful investment here they'd more than make their money back.<p>>"One would think that the industry has the reserves to jump at this challenge. But none of the four top vaccine companies has shown significant interest," says Dr Ellen 't Hoen, director at medicines law and policy at University Medical Center Groningen in Amsterdam.<p>>Also speaking at last week's Aspen Institute event, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said no major pharmaceutical company has come forward to say it would manufacture a vaccine for Covid-19. He called it "very difficult and very frustrating".<p>>"Companies that have the skill to be able to do it are not going to just sit around and have a warm facility, ready to go for when you need it," Dr Fauci said.<p>>For Covid-19, charitable donations are being used to spark pharma companies into action to find a vaccine.
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The Chinese New Year, Jan 17 through Feb 8, is also a period where less manufacturing activity normally occurs. Why I know this? I had to plan our inventory and sales logistics around this period every year for seven years. We would order production so that it would be completed and shipped to us prior to Chinese New Year, or start production immediately after. We never wanted production to occur across the three week down period.<p>I strongly suspect that large company logistics team, and certainly an expert like Tim Cook, already have this contingency in place. However, since CV has extended beyond the New Years time frame, those contingency plans will start to break down.
This doesn't seem to have affected the stock price today, including in after-hours trading. So either it's been gradually priced-in, or...<p>...is this actually expected to affect Apple once the year is over? Presumably people will just wait a couple months to buy a new phone, and below-average sales now will be matched by a wave of above-average sales afterwards?<p>The need to upgrade your phone doesn't go away. And wouldn't all cell phone manufacturers be similarly hit these days? So it's not like switching brands away from Apple is more of an option?<p>Just curious... happy for someone to correct me if I'm making wrong assumptions here.
I've heard that our quest for incessant optimization in warehousing and inventory management means this pandemic is catching everyone flat-footed.<p>The McKinsey consultants of the world have pushed for more and more "turns" (how many times your inventory turns over completely in a warehouse - most orgs aim for 3+ turns a year) and minimizing your "cash to cash" cycle (you pay for manufactured inventory, you need too turn it BACK to cash QUICKLY - don't have it sitting on warehouse shelves)<p>Now we don't have enough slack in the supply chain. Doesn't really matter much (except economically) for iPhones etc - but means a lot when you're running JIT (just-in-time) inventory management for things like hand sanitizer or medical masks.