Housekeeping Part 1: 2019-nCov Pandemic

There were a couple of things I initially wanted to discuss in this section, but the situation warrants me to focus on the most important topic. And so the main topic on the housekeeping agenda relates to the outbreak of the 2019-nCov Coronavirus and the impact it has on the Guangdong province as well as Hong Kong. For those who do not know, PINE64 devices are produced in the city of Shenzhen located in the Guangdong province, and all equipment with batteries – such as the Pinebook Pro or PinePhone – ships out from Hong Kong.

As some of you may already know from my post on the forums, earlier this month Guangdong issued a restrictive order prohibiting work from resuming until February 10th. While, in theory, companies are now allowed to resume business, in practice everything remains at a complete standstill. In other words, our operations and those of our partners as well as factories have not resumed as of today. For a variety of reasons, there is also a limit to how much work our staff can do at the moment.

Factories producing the PinePhone, PineTab and Pinebook Pro remain closed because they need to undergo a long and complicated procedure that will allow them to resume operation. However, due to the huge volume of such government sanctioned procedures required province-wide, it may yet some time before people can even enter the factory. It’s worth pointing out that this issue can also be felt up the entire supply chain – manufacturers of components are also affected by this, and shortages are expected.

Sadly, this isn’t the entire extent of the problem; as I’ve already mentioned, all devices which contain batteries ship from Hong Kong. Earlier this month Hong Kong closed many key crossings to the region from mainland China, including the one which we rely on, and now there is a 2-week long quarantine for anyone arriving from mainland China to Hong Kong. This means that our shipping staff can’t reach the Hong Kong warehouse.

So, then, what does all this mean in practice? It means that we cannot produce anything this month and, even if we could, there is no way for us to ship any devices with batteries. I will refrain from speculating as to when things will return to normal. Expect shipping dates to slip considerably. I have a suspicion that the extent of this disturbance will be felt across the entire electronics industry for the rest of the year.

I will keep you updated the best I can in the previously linked thread; the moment I know something I’ll make sure to create a new post and update the original entry.