When discussing Apple’s Q1 2020 results, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC the coronavirus is impacting the company’s operations in China.
According to Cook, the company is restricting employee travel in China and has already closed one store. Apple is also cutting back retail store hours as a precaution.
“We’re restricting travel to business critical travel,” Cook told CNBC’s Josh Lipton. “For employees that are in the Wuhan area, we are providing care kits and supplying them across our employee population in China as well.”
One of Apple’s main manufacturers, Foxconn, earlier stated it foresaw no impact to its manufacturing timetables as a result of the coronavirus. While that may have been some good news for Apple, it appears the overall effects of the outbreak will still impact the company.
In fact, in their quarterly earnings report, Apple issued a wider-than-normal guidance for Q2 largely because of the virus.
“The situation is, is emerging and we’re still gathering lots of data points and monitoring it very closely,” said Apple CFO Luca Maestri, according to Digital Trends. “We have a wider than usual revenue range for the second quarter, due to the greater uncertainty. We’re closely following the development of the coronavirus.”