China has been hit hard by the latest wave of Covid-19. The country’s strict anti-pandemic policies and the increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant have resulted in several Chinese cities getting locked down, in turn affecting supply chains. Apple is the latest victim of these lockdowns as the production of their MacBook Pro 14 and 16 laptops can’t keep up with demand. Quanta Computer, reportedly the sole manufacturer of said notebooks, has been suffering from production levels as low as five percent of capacity at its Shanghai factory in the past few months.
The situation does seem to be slightly better now, as Quanta’s vice chairman CC Leung claimed that production lines were at 30 percent of their maximum output at the end of April and that the company is currently trying to scale it back up to 50 percent. While component shortages and city-wide lockdowns are partly to blame for this, there are now also mentions of employee riots at the factory. The news seems hardly surprising, considering that some of these workers have to sleep and live on the premises as part of a “closed-loop” isolation system. Taking a quick look at Apple’s website, all 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models are currently being quoted with a 7-9 week shipping time, whereas the 13-inch models are in stock.
