Samsung Electronics yesterday announced it has shut down its factory in South Korea and is temporarily moving its smartphone production to Vietnam.
According to the company’s spokeswoman, the company was forced to shut down operations at its factory in the Southern city of Gumi in South Korea as another of its worker tested positive for the Coronavirus.
The Spokeswoman also said that factory in Vietnam which produces a range of Samsung premium phones such as the S20 and Z Flip foldable phones will resume production today.
In an official statement, the company said that it has taken this move of producing Samsung premium phones in Vietnam, to continue to “supply products to consumers in a more effective, stable and timely manner”.
According to reports, between last month and the present, six workers have tested positive to the virus at the factory complex in Gumi, close to the city of Daegu – the epicentre of South Korea’s virus outbreak – leading to previous temporary closures at the plant in the last month.
The company said, “Once the COVID-19 situation stabilizes, we plan to move back the output to Gumi.”
For the past ten years, Samsung Electronics has already moved a large volume of its smartphone production to Vietnam where there has been little production disruption, leaving the Gumi factory to make up for the small portion of its total global output.
Last week the company launched its S20 flagship smartphones globally as scheduled, ignoring concerns that the virus would dip demand for the premium phones both in the local and overseas markets.
