It's Probably Worse Than We Think

Two sources have told me that Nikon Thailand is still dealing with water in the manufacturing plant. Workers have not been told when work will resume. Update1: Asia News Network has a report that says the Sony and Nikon plants have "no prospect of recovery." Nikon Thailand produced a news release late last week that says "the first floor of all buildings...are presently submerged." Generally, equipment that is submerged would need to be completely replaced. Update2: as of the moment, 843 factories in Thailand have been damaged by the flood. The Ayutthaya area where Nikon is located is still flooded, and 610 factories in the five business parks that make up that complex are impacted. Seagate and Western Digital produce hard drives in this region, for example. The flood is continuing to surge South towards Bangkok, so it's likely we're going to be hearing about more tech companies being disrupted. To put things in perspective, an area of 5500 square miles--approximately the size of Connecticut--is under water. Update3: Sony has cancelled the introductions of the A65 and NEX-7 models due to the flooding situation. Two of Sony's three plants in Thailand are flooded, and the semiconductor operation there is currently suspended due to inability to source supplies.

Here in the US, it appears that NikonUSA is preparing for the worst. Promotions for Black Friday and beyond appear to be on hold. There seems to be a sense that supplies of things coming out of Thailand that they would normally promote for the Christmas season are going to get very short between now and the end of the year.

So what things are made in the affected plant? D3100, D5100, D7000, D300s bodies, plus the 18-55mm DX, 18-105mm DX, 18-200mm DX, 70-300mm, and I think, 60mm Micro-Nikkor lens are assembled there, as well as the 24-120mm and 28-300mm. That's basically the bulk of Nikon's consumer DSLR sales, plus a large chunk of the low-end FX optics.

As if that weren't enough, slowly but surely we're hearing about other high tech plants and products that were hit by the same problems. Western Digital, a key maker of hard drives, has not only their assembly plant but several component suppliers in the same area as Nikon's plant. I'm also told Sony has stopped production of the A65, A77, and NEX-7.

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