KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 ― A supply chain disruption caused by the surge in Covid-19 cases in Malaysia has affected US automakers.
A Bloomberg report stated that in recent years “Malaysia emerged as a major center for chip testing and packaging, with Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors NV and STMicroelectronics NV among the key suppliers operating there.”
The high number of cases in the past few months has resulted in lockdowns and cut down production capacity.
The Bloomberg report said the Ford Motor Co. had to temporarily suspend production of the F-150 pickup truck last week at one of its plants because “of a semiconductor-related part shortage as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia.”
“Malaysia is a key player in the global semiconductor trade,” Wong Siew Hai, president of the Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association, said in an interview as reported by Bloomberg.
“Thus, any disruption anywhere along the supply chain will have knock-on effects elsewhere in the ecosystem,” he added.
The report mentioned that at least 57 per cent of the population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Infineon Chief Executive Officer Reinhard Ploss said that manufacturing bottlenecks will continue to focus on sales and suggested that the impact of economic shutdowns cost “high double-digit” millions of Euros despite claiming that companies in South-east Asia should be running at normal capacity later this month.
Bloomberg also reported that the auto-sector’s Malaysia related supply issues are not only limited to chips as the country is also a key manufacturer of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC), a component required by an array of products from smartphones to cars, according to research by Trendforce.
It also mentioned that in recent weeks, Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Co. have warned of the worsening of component shortages due to lockdowns in Malaysia, with the Japanese carmaker shutting down the production lines at its Smyrna, Tennessee, facility for two weeks this month.
However, the country’s daily Covid-19 cases have been trending downwards the last four days with yesterday’s cases standing at 17,672 compared to last Friday’s more than 23,000 cases.
