Oliver Haslam on March 2, 2020, 9:46 pm

Coronavirus Forces Samsung And iPhone Camera Supplier LG Innotek To Close Plants In South Korea

LG Innotek is one of the suppliers that make the camera modules that go into Apple’s iPhone, and it had to close a South Korean factory over the weekend. But it wasn’t alone, with Reuters reporting that Samsung has also had to close a factory because an employee was found to have contracted coronavirus.

Both factories are in Gumi, South Korea, and they closed over the weekend after a Samsung employee tested positive for the virus.

Samsung’s mobile device factory in Gumi, close to Daegu, where most of the South Korean virus cases have been confirmed, will be closed until Sunday evening for disinfection work while the floor where the infected employee worked will reopen on Tuesday afternoon, a company statement said.

The same goes for an LG Innotek plant which also closed following the detection of another case of coronavirus. It, too, plans on decontaminating the facility with Tuesday being the expected re-opening date. It isn’t clear whether the factory will be able to immediately ramp back up to 100% capacity, however.

While the LG Innotek closure may impact iPhone production, the Samsung plant is responsible for making the recently released Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy S20.

The former in particular is suffering from a lack of supply right now, with this news unlikely to be welcome among those waiting for handsets to arrive. Samsung hasn’t said how bad the impact of this closure may be, but it expects the plant to be back up and running on Tuesday afternoon.

(Source: Reuters)