You would have to be living under a rock right now to not be hearing about the coronavirus outbreak in China that is slowly spreading throughout the world, but it is now affecting Apple.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the on-going coronavirus outbreak in China is affecting Apple's operations in the country, so it has restricted employee travel and even closed an Apple Store in China over the outbreak. Tim Cook explained to CNBC: "We're restricting travel to business critical travel. For employees that are in the Wuhan area, we are providing care kits and supplying them across our employee population in China as well".
The company has "some suppliers" in the Wuhan area according to Cook, who told Apple investors on Tuesday that some of its manufacturing facilities in China will be closed until February 10. The Chinese government has put forward these recommendations, with Cook also adding that some of its channel partners have closed their retail stores which will have a (small) impact on sales. Cook added: "Retail traffic has also been impacted outside of the city over the last few days".
