Foxconn founder Terry Gou said today that the company is recovering from the coronavirus-caused work disruption at its plants, describing the progress made toward restoring operations as having “exceeded our expectations and imagination.” 

Foxconn, officially known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., is the world’s largest contract maker of electronics. It’s Apple Inc.’s biggest manufacturing partner and maintains most of its manufacturing operations in China. 

Foxconn’s key role in the global consumer electronics supply chain means that its progress toward restoring operations is likely to be closely watched by investors rattled by the coronavirus outbreak. Previously, on March 3, executives said that Foxconn expects production in China to return to the usual seasonal level by the end of this month.

In his update today on the company’s recovery effort, founder Terry Gou also said supplies to its Chinese factories and those in Vietnam had returned to normal. That’s a potentially positive sign about the recovery of the upstream suppliers which make parts for the electronics industry. 

But the coronavirus continues to take a toll on the tech industry. Gou was quoted as saying he has “concerns” about supplies in Japan and South Korea amid the ongoing outbreaks in the two nations, pointing out rising DRAM memory prices and display panel supply issues as two pain points. That may be a reference to South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world’s largest maker of both DRAMs and displays, whose has reportedly suspended production at least one of its South Korean factories because of the coronavirus.

But though encouraging, Foxconn’s update didn’t stop the shares of its top customer Apple from plummeting along with other stocks. The iPhone maker’s shares cratered more than 8% at one point today as part of a massive selloff that caused trading to be suspended for  15 minutes at both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Stocks later recovered some of the losses after the New York Federal Reserve announced an extraordinary move to inject more than $1 trillion into the financial system.

The Dow Jones Industrial Index fell nearly 10% on the day, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both fell about 9.5%. Across the pond, the key Stoxx 600 index of European shares suffered the worst day in its history after closing 11% lower.

Photo: Robert Geiger/Flickr