Experts: Huawei downplays the impact of coronavirus, but it will suffer harder than Apple

An outbreak of coronavirus in China has been a costly blow to companies relying on this country for their supply chain and customers. However, Huawei has been cautious in predicting the negative impact of coronavirus. One of the company’s top managers, president of the Huawei operator business group, Ryan Ding, said the epidemic will not have any impact on its global supply chain in the next three to six months.

“We are still conducting a daily assessment of the state of things and can say that over the next three to six months there will not be much influence on our global supply chain,” Dean told Business Insider this week in an email.

Ding acknowledged the closure of local factories, but added that all Huawei factories in Guangdong, which borders Hubei, have already begun work.

Analysts are more skeptical about this. They claim that Huawei will suffer more from the coronavirus outbreak than Apple, as it relies more heavily on Chinese consumers in the smartphone business.

“Given the dependence of Huawei and other Chinese brands on their own supply chain, I hardly believe that things will go as usual,” analyst Carolina Milanesi told Business Insider.

Forrester analyst Thomas Husson said that Huawei’s business could be hit harder than Apple, as it has a larger market share in China, where quarantine and restrictions have affected consumer activity. “Huawei’s smartphone market share is much higher than Apple’s, business impact is likely to be stronger,” he said. He was supported by Lynette Luna of GlobalData. “Even if the virus is suppressed within a few weeks, it will take some time to resume operations to return to normal — two to three months,” she said.