Coronavirus Outbreak to Hold Back Foxconn's Produc

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., known also as Foxconn, plans a quarantine of up to two weeks for any employee that returns to work at its main iPhone-making base, a measure to curb the novel coronavirus that may hurt Apple’s production.

Apple’s manufacturing partner plans to officially resume work Feb. 10 after an extended Lunar New Year break intended to combat the outbreak. But Hon Hai said in a statement Wednesday that workers returning from outside Henan province, site of its main factory in Zhengzhou, will be sequestered for 14 days. Any staff reporting to work who reside within the province itself will be isolated for 7 days, the company added.

Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn, makes the vast majority of the world’s iPhones from Zhengzhou, central China.

The lost production prompted the company to cut its 2020 revenue outlook. The company is now projecting a sales increase of 1% to 3% this year, Chairman Young Liu told Bloomberg News. That’s down from a Jan. 22 forecast of 3% to 5%, before the epidemic spread around the globe, and lags the 5.4% average of analysts’ projections.

Hon Hai, which makes products for companies from HP Inc. to Sony Corp., said Tuesday it still expects to be able to restart facilities throughout China on schedule. Key suppliers with major Chinese operations such as Quanta Computer Inc., Inventec Corp. and LG Display Co. have also said they would go back to work next week.