Today TrendForce posted a Comprehensive Analysis of COVID-19 Outbreak’s Impact on Global High-Tech Industry. The report covers semiconductors, memory products, display panels, optical communications industry,  wearables, notebooks, smart speakers, automobiles and more. Below is a brief forecast for the smartphone industry.

TrendForce reports that "The outbreak has made a relatively high impact on the smartphone industry because the smartphone supply chain is highly labor-intensive. Q1 2020 smartphone production is projected to decline by 12% YoY, making it the quarter with the lowest output within the past five years.

Parts in the upstream supply chain, including passive components and camera modules, are also showing shortages, which can potentially continue to negatively affect smartphone production in Q2, if the outbreak is not contained by the end of February.

Should the outbreak intensify, TrendForce considers market need to be the most important consideration in the long-term analysis of the smartphone industry. Because of the interconnectedness of the global economy, the progression of China’s outbreak damages not only China’s GDP, but also the overall global economy, leading to a reduction of consumer purchasing power and subsequently presenting a difficult challenge for the overall smartphone industry.

2020 smartphone production is projected to reach 1.381 billion units, a 1.3% decline YoY and the lowest output since 2016. Still, due to the outbreak’s mercurial nature, it is entirely possible for 2020 smartphone production to fall below this forecast. To review the entire TrendForce report click here.

While TrendForce's report provide us with a global view of the coronavirus on the technology industry as a whole, a new report posted today by MENAFN, provides us with a myopic view of the status of iPhones in Israel.

The report states that "Mobile phone operators in Israel were notified today by Apple that the supply of iPhones sent to Israel would be updated every week, instead of every three weeks, because of uncertainty caused by the coronavirus outbreak, which is affecting the production capacity of factories in Asia, Trend with reference to Globes reports.

At the same time, CData, one of Apple's distributors in Israel, reported to its distributors and stores that its current supply of devices was limited. The company stated, "As a result of the situation in China, the inventory of iPhones has almost run out, and there is no expectation that new inventory will arrive." The company later specified which models it still had in stock.

The mobile phone companies in Israel believe that a delay in the arrival of mobile phone deliveries to Israel is possible because of the disruption of production lines."