It has been reported that Canon is temporarily closing various factories in Japan as a result of supplies from China falling short due to the impact of coronavirus.
Nikkei.com reports that several factories on the island of Kyushu will be closed for two weeks as of March 2. The supply chain of parts coming from China has been destabilized due to the broader economic impacts of coronavirus.
New cases of the virus are said to be slowing in China and it is thought that many factories that were temporarily shuttered in recent weeks will begin to open. Hundreds of millions of workers have been unable to go to work and global supply chains have been impacted.
While Canon is the only camera company to make this announcement, there will be consequences for other manufacturers, with Sony’s Chief Financial Officer, Hiroki Totoki, having already issued a warning that it will be affected. “Depending on the future progress of the virus,” he explained, “we cannot deny that our production and sales supply chain for the image sensor and electronics business could be affected enormously.” It is assumed that the largest impact will be on Sony’s smartphone image sensors and the production of Playstation 4 gaming consoles.
Big Tech... lets have our supply lines completely rely on a Communist craphole country with slave camps and people that eat bats and cats.
It's like people have never heard the saying don't put all of your eggs in one basket.
Got to photograph a wedding end of july, was hoping to bring a new R5 with with me too. As unconvinient it may be for me, the safety of workers should alsways be highest priority. If neccessary I would understand if they close for 2 months.
World is literally consuming itself with endless production of good and consequent consumption of nature. While it is a small break in the usual cycle of bringing new product into me global market it might be the time to think about future.
There are plenty of good used cameras available right here in the USA, not to worry
Canon: while you're waiting to restart production how about adding focus bracketing to the EOS R like you have on the RP. Shouldn’t take your team more than a half day.
Better yet how about a codec for CR3 so we can preview thumbnails in Windows 10.