Samsung has once again been forced to shut down its factory in Gumi, South Korea as another employee working at the premises has been infected by COVID-19. The Gumi factory produces Samsung's flagship and premium products like the Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy S20 series and primarily caters to the local demand. The factory was previously closed for a couple of days in February for the same reason. It was then followed by another closure for a week for disinfection purposes.
This will be the sixth employee working at Samsung's Gumi plant to have been infected with the coronavirus. This time around, Samsung will be closing the factory for only a day and it will resume production from March 7th. The company does not expect any supply disruptions due to this shutdown. Gumi is close to the city of Daegu, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in South Korea.
Samsung will now be shifting the production of "some premium smartphones" to Vietnam as it wants to "supply products to consumers in more effective, stable and timely manner." It will move the production back to its Gumi plant once the coronavirus outbreak is contained. The Korean company has already moved the majority of its smartphone production to Vietnam and India and the repeated shutdowns at the Gumi plant are unlikely to have a major impact.
Source: Reuters
