Carmaker says it has two weeks’ supply left as Apple cuts billions of dollars off sales forecast and big firms warn of fallout

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

Jaguar Land Rover has warned it could run out of car parts at its British factories at the end of next week, as the coronavirus halts supplies from China.

Britain’s biggest carmaker added its voice to a chorus of companies counting the cost of the outbreak, as the epidemic weighs heavily on international business and trade.

“We are safe for this week and we are safe for next week and in the third week we have … parts missing,” said the JLR chief executive, Ralf Speth. He added: “We have flown parts in suitcases from China to the UK.”

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Speth added that the company was currently making no sales in China, one of its most important markets.

Apple cut its sales forecasts on Monday and could be set for further pain after its major iPhone supplier said quarantine protocols meant it was struggling to squeeze as many workers into its factory dormitories as usual.

Elsewhere, the Parisian fashion house Chanel said it had shelved a forthcoming Beijing fashion show over coronavirus fears.

As the ecomonic fallout spread, a series of companies and politicians conceded that disruption to day-to-day operations was inescapable:

HSBC said it expected its sizeable Asian operations to take a financial hit in 2020

The world’s largest miner, BHP, said global demand could slow

South Korea proposed emergency steps to protect its economy

Wall’s and Richmond sausages company Kerry Group warned on revenues

The UK accounting watchdog told UK firms to assess the impact of the virus on their business

Energy services group Tekmar slashed its profit forecasts.

Speth said JLR had enough parts from China to maintain its British production for the next two weeks but not beyond.

The firm has three UK plants – Halewood on Merseyside, and Castle Bromwich and Solihull in the Midlands – but did not say if they might have to close or reduce production.

Quick guide What are coronavirus symptoms and should I go to a doctor? Show Hide What is Covid-19? Covid-19 is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it a pandemic. What are the symptoms this coronavirus causes? According to the WHO, the most common symptoms of Covid-19 are fever, tiredness and a dry cough. Some patients may also have a runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion and aches and pains or diarrhoea. Some people report losing their sense of taste and/or smell. About 80% of people who get Covid-19 experience a mild case – about as serious as a regular cold – and recover without needing any special treatment. About one in six people, the WHO says, become seriously ill. The elderly and people with underlying medical problems like high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes, or chronic respiratory conditions, are at a greater risk of serious illness from Covid-19. In the UK, the National health Service (NHS) has identified the specific symptoms to look for as experiencing either: a high temperature - you feel hot to touch on your chest or back

a new continuous cough - this means you’ve started coughing repeatedly As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work, and there is currently no vaccine. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system. Should I go to the doctor if I have a cough? Medical advice varies around the world - with many countries imposing travel bans and lockdowns to try and prevent the spread of the virus. In many place people are being told to stay at home rather than visit a doctor of hospital in person. Check with your local authorities. In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days. If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.

“If you think back to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, there were critical parts coming from Japan, so Japanese producers shut down in the UK,” said Prof David Bailey, of Birmingham Business School. “It depends whether they have second sourcing agreements to get parts elsewhere and whether they can flex those.”

Apple has been among the hardest hit of the world’s major companies. The smartphone maker said on Monday that the coronavirus may have shaved billions of dollars off global sales.

Apple said it may not hit its sales forecast of between $63bn (£48bn) and $67bn for the quarter ending this June, citing uncertainty caused by the epidemic.

Its key iPhone supplier, Foxconn, has switched some of its production to making surgical masks instead of smartphones, but is reportedly struggling to get its production lines back up to speed.

It usually fits eight workers into each dormitory at its factory in Zhengzhou but quarantine measures mean each now has to have their own room, the Financial Times reported.

Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA Europe said Apple’s forecast was “likely the first of many profit warnings as the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc in the world’s second largest economy”.

Analysts have suggested that Apple’s South Korean rival Samsung could benefit from the US firm’s supply chain issues. But the South Korean domestic economy is far from isolated from the outbreak’s effects.

A day after economic forecasters warned Japan was facing a recession due to regional disruption to trade, South Korea’s president, President Moon Jae-in, told members of his administration that the country needed to take “emergency” steps.

Businesses worldwide count cost of coronavirus outbreak Read more

George Magnus, associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, said: “The knock-on effects from Chinese demand grinding to a halt are most acute for Hong Kong, but also for Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore – and Brazil as a commodity producer.”

He said affected economies would recover from the impact quickly if restrictions imposed by Beijing were lifted within a few months.

“But if it turns out that China sustained the clampdown regime into the early summer or beyond, then the cumulative effects would increase significantly,” he said.

“A Chinese recession – unheard of – would send shockwaves through the world economy. Hopefully though that’s a low-probability scenario.”

The coronavirus has already had a complex effect on global trade, hitting tourism and retail sales in the huge Chinese market.

It has also caused the cancellation of industry events such as the tech sector’s annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The latest global name to cancel its plans was Chanel, whose models were due to show off its latest designs at a show in Beijing in May.

Chanel said the 31 rue Cambon 2019/20 Métiers d’art collection, which has already been shown in Paris, would be displayed at a “later and more appropriate moment”, but did not give a new date.

“At the foremost are the health and well-being of its teams and clients,” the company said.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK’s accounting watchdog, has told the UK’s “Big Four” auditors to ensure they have plans in place to analyst the effect of the outbreak on firms with operations in China.

A string of companies offered updates alongside their financial results.

Uncertainty about the length of the crisis is one of the largest hurdles, according to HSBC, which said on Tuesday that disruption for staff, suppliers and customers could hurt profits in 2020.

Group chief financial officer, Ewen Stevenson, said: “We expect to take additional loan loss provisions as a result of the coronavirus and the weakened outlook for the Hong Kong economy.

“I think it’s really a call on how long does it take to contain the virus, and certainly some of the latest data has given us more optimism on that over the last week or so.”

Fiat warns coronavirus could force closure of European plant Read more

The chief executive of BHP, the world’s largest mining group, said the company could be affected by falling demand if the virus is not contained by the end of March.

As a major supplier of raw materials, BHP’s fortunes are affected by economic growth patterns, particularly in large economies such as China.

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Irish food ingredients company Kerry Group, which makes Richmond sausages, said its Chinese revenues were likely to slump by 30% in the first quarter of the year. It has five factories in China and has been operating with a skeleton staff, it said.

Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels Group has closed or partially closed 160 out of its 470 hotels in mainland China and said it expects a short-term hit from the outbreak.

The company said in January that it would allow customers to change or cancel stays in China, Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan up to 3 February, at no additional cost.

Shares in Tekmar, a tech firm that serves offshore energy projects in China, fell by more than 20% after it cut profit forecasts, citing disruption to its shipments and supply chain.

China accounts for 10% of its expected revenues. Chairman Alasdair MacDonald said the effect on the business had been “unpredictable and rapid”.

• This article was amended on 19 February 2020 because an earlier version said that Kerry Group made Wall’s Ice Cream, whereas it is a Unilever product.