The Sony (SONY.US) image sensor factory restarted after the earthquake, and Apple's supply chain was not directly affected

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Sony (SONY.US) said that after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake and multiple aftershocks hit the southwestern Japanese islands, the company will begin a phased restart of the image sensor factory in Kyushu on Tuesday.

The company expects production at the plant to return to pre-earthquake levels in mid-August. Sony's factory in Kumamoto Prefecture manufactures image sensors for digital cameras, surveillance systems, and advanced driver assistance systems for automobiles. This production site does not manufacture smartphone image sensors.

Kumamoto Prefecture is also home to manufacturing facilities for companies such as TSM.US, Tokyo Electronics, and Mitsubishi Electric. As equipment is being inspected and calibrated, operations at many of these plants are still largely suspended, and the full impact on the industrial and technology supply chains is unclear.

A decade ago, Kumamoto Prefecture was devastated by a devastating earthquake. At the time, it took Sony more than three months to resume operations at its factory, and another two months to return to normal production levels. In addition, Sony also operates image sensor factories in other parts of Kyushu, and those factories were unaffected by the earthquake.

The impact of this earthquake was relatively limited

In 2016, Sony's Kumamoto plant was shut down for more than 3 or 5 months before production was fully resumed, causing direct and indirect losses of tens of billions of yen. However, this shutdown only took about a week (gradual restart from July 28 to August 4), and the risk of supply chain disruptions was greatly reduced.

The Kumamoto Plant mainly produces image sensors for digital cameras, security monitoring systems, and automotive advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). It does not manufacture smartphone sensors.

Sony's main mobile sensor production sites are located in other parts of Kyushu (such as Nagasaki, Oita, and Kagoshima plants). Sony officially confirmed that these factories were not substantially damaged by the earthquake, and normal production was not affected, so the mobile phone supply chain for core customers such as Apple (iPhone) was not directly impacted.

Market analysis indicates that after the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, Sony and local semiconductor manufacturers (including TSMC Kumamoto Plant, etc.) have comprehensively upgraded the plant's earthquake prevention, equipment reinforcement, and seismic response processes.

The investigation was completed and the gradual resumption of work was announced within a week, showing extremely high supply chain resilience and reducing the risk of long-term performance fluctuations.

The capital market's response to Sony's short-term share price fluctuations was lackluster. Analysts believe that short-term delivery delays for automotive and camera sensors can be covered by subsequent increases in production capacity and inventory allocation, and will not cause significant material damage to Sony's revenue and profit guidelines for the entire fiscal year.