Photographer: Bing Guan / Bloomberg
Photographer: Bing Guan / Bloomberg
Japanese manufacturers collapsed on Monday after a fire stopped one chipmaker unexpectedly Renesas Electronics Corp.’s largest plant, reducing a growing global shortage of automated semiconductors.
Renesas slipped as much as 5.4%, while buyers from Toyota Motor Corp. gu Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. also in early trade. One of the largest suppliers of car chips, Renesas was forced to suspend a Japanese plant on Friday after a fire broke out in one of its clean rooms, emergency areas designed to prevent maintain consistency from contamination of semiconductors.
Toyota said Monday that it is trying to determine which stops came from the unexpected stop, which could go down across an industry already struggling to keep collection lines afloat. work during a severe shortage of chips. Renesas fire is likely to exacerbate a crisis caused by strong demand for home and work appliances during the pandemic, which was assessed earlier this year to about Spend $ 61 billion on global manufacturers in lost sales in 2021.
Chief Executive Hidetoshi Shibata warned that the plant could be put off for a month and cost the company 17 billion yen ($ 156 million) in revenue.
“I am concerned that this will have a major impact,” Shibata said at a news conference on Sunday, following the fire.
Renesas, which posted 715.7 billion yen in revenue last year, gets about 6.6% of sales from Toyota, according to the Bloomberg Supply Chain Study. The Japanese automaker also warned that a cold semiconductor shortage caused by weather will force a factory in the Czech Republic to shut down for two weeks. A Toyota representative said it is investigating the potential impact of the Renesas shutdown but they had nothing more to share at this time.
“This turns out to be a negative story,” said Takeshi Miyao, an analyst at independent researcher Carnorama. “Production is declining, not increasing, so the balance between supply and demand is not getting worse. ”
Read more: Headache Provision of fire and ice slate for the car industry
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The automotive industry could lose $ 61 billion of 2021 sales from chip shortages
Source: AlixPartners. Measurements based on current loss rate.
Read more: Headache Provision of fire and ice slate for the car industry
Shibata had they told Bloomberg News earlier in March that shortages could continue in the second half, joining other industry leaders in kicking for chip bark to snarl cars and machinery long past in the summer.
“This is terrible for the car supply chain; they may need to move towards holding more investments, ”Bloomberg information analyst Masahiro Wakasugi said of the Renesas fire.
Renesas has production facilities at six sites in Japan. The N3 building where the fire started is home to the production of a 300-millimeter wafer, which would make it one of the company’s most advanced lines. In 2019, Renesas became the third largest manufacturer of automated silicon. Toyota is one of those largest buyers, according to a Bloomberg supply chain study.
“Supply will remain tight throughout the first half of the year,” Shibata said in an interview published on March 12. “And as things look now, the situation will continue into the second half. But it’s anyone’s blows. ”
Read more: Carmakers chip shortage may last until the end of 2021, Renesas said
– Supported by Shiho Takezawa, and Chikafumi Hodo
(Updates with Toyota idea in the sixth paragraph)