iPhone X Deliveries May Be Delayed By Wednesday Earthquake In South Korea

The southeastern coast of South Korea was hit by a 5.4 magnitude earthquake Wednesday. It left devastation in its wake, injuring dozens of people and leaving as many as 1,500 homeless.

The earthquake hit the shoreline at around 2:30 p.m. local time Wednesday (around 12:30 a.m. EST).

It is expected to have impacted Samsung’s display plants which make OLED displays for iPhone X in the Gyeonggi and Paju provinces of the country and could cause delays in production of the device. If that is the case, the quake could cause further production delays for an already delayed device.

However, contrasting reports about damages to the display panel production have been doing the rounds. While Taiwanese market intelligence company TrendForce reported at 5:07 p.m. local time that the quake did not affect the display panel manufacturing industry much since the provinces where the display units were located were far from the epicentre of the quake, Korean news outlet Yonhap News reported at 8:23 p.m. local time on Wednesday that the plants were in fact impacted by the quake.

“Samsung Electronics Co. halted operations of its smartphone production line and had all workers evacuate after a 5.4-magnitude earthquake hit the nearby port city of Pohang on Wednesday,” the report says.

The report further states that Samsung is looking into the situation at its chip production facilities in Gyeonggi province.

The quake has been termed the second strongest since 1978 and has forced the education ministry to postpone university exams by a week.

While there is a high possibility that display panel production facilities weren’t harmed by the quake, but if they were impacted even a little, it could create issues for both Samsung and Apple. Samsung manufactures OLED Super Retina display panels for the iPhone X — Apple’s flagship phone for 2017, which has been in high demand.

The device has been suffering from constant delays. The reason for this is that it is yet to enter a production super cycle in which the production of the device will coincide with its demand. The device comes with new OLED displays and other components such as Apple’s TrueDepth camera capable of doing face scans using FaceID technology.

While pre-orders for the device began on Oct. 27, the actual delivery dates for the device given by careers such as Verizon are in December. Apple has released the device in limited quantities. In a statement to the International Business Times in October, the company said that the “customer demand [for the iPhone X] is off the charts.”

If the quake impacts the production of the device, it could, in fact, cause a problem for Apple as the company will miss out on the holiday season which starts around Black Friday (Nov. 24) and ends around New Year’s day. This is an important period in the annual sales cycle for every iPhone. Missing it could mean serious issues for the company, especially since the iPhone X is its most expensive phone till date.