Fuji Japan sees SARS hurting digicam output
By
Mike Tomkins
(Thursday, May 1, 2003 - 03:19 EDT)
Unless you've been living under a rock recently, you've doubtless heard of SARS - "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome" - an illness which is transmitted by respiratory droplets and seems to be fatal in around 10% of cases.
SARS has mostly affected Asia (and in particular China) at this point, as well as some cases in Canada. We've been hearing suggestions for a couple of weeks now that SARS might negatively impact businesses beyond these affected countries, and it seems that Fuji Japan are indeed bracing themselves for such a possibility. The Japan Today website says that Fuji is cutting projected shipments of digital cameras for fiscal 2003 by a whopping 500,000 units, citing an expected shortfall of components manufactured in China.
Hopefully SARS will be brought under control in China soon, but if the disease continues to spread unchecked, we would not be surprised to see Fuji's competitors similarly revise their production goals.
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