05/13/2020 - 18:06
- Clarín.com
- Society
Beyond the basic products and supplies, there are other elements that are decisive when considering life in quarantine due to the coronavirus. What would isolation be like without a cell phone? How could classes be taught without computers? How less bearable would this strange everyday life be? In this scenario, a ghost emerges: due to the temporary closure of the manufacturing companies, the stock of mobile phones, televisions and notebooks was greatly reduced.
The picture is repeated in the main electrical appliance houses in the country: demand grew and supply stagnated. "The inventory level is the lowest in history," they agree.
As with the coronavirus, the conflict chain finds its starting point in China. From there, the necessary links for the manufacture of most household appliances and mainly cell phones travel to Argentina. Already in these latitudes, the epicenter is in Tierra del Fuego where the factories that make the devices work.
Precisely the island was one of the first points in the country in which the virus spread, so they had to start isolation early, on March 15. In Tierra del Fuego there are 29 electrical appliance factories that employ about 8 thousand workers. Altogether, they invoiced 1,500 million dollars in 2019. There, the manufacture of cell phones (7 million in 2019), televisions (2 million) and air conditioners (1 million) are concentrated. All this production was put on hold by the quarantine.
The combo is reflected in sales. The global smartphone market registered the largest year-on-year drop in history in February, with a 38% decrease in the number of units. And in our country, the week of March 23 to 30 (the first complete with mandatory isolation) was the week with the lowest number of phone sales: 16,300 cell phones. To make matters worse, Argentina was coming from a 2019 in which the sector had suffered the lowest profitability of the decade.
Online notebook sales tripled due to insulation and few products remain in stock. (Guillermo Rodriguez Adami)
“Since January, production plants have had problems receiving supplies. To this we must add that in the first days of March all the factories were closed but that in turn continued to sell. Then you have 60 days without supply sales without new revenues , "remarks to Clarin commercial director Frávega, Alejandro Taszma.
No brand had a safety stock large enough to keep up with the supply. And that resulted in the sales premises.
“The inventory and stock level became practically zero. This week the factories in Tierra del Fuego started working, but they do it with the corresponding protocol and much less people on the production line. We believe that they will be able to carry out between 30 and 40% of the usual production ”, Taszma describes.
Only in a month could the circuit start to be oiled with transfers from Tierra del Fuego to the rest of the provinces.
"In the most popular categories of television and cell phones, 35- and 40-inch TVs and mid-range mobiles, there is a shortage of stock and probably it will have to be replaced with a little more urgency", anticipated the head of the Association of Argentine Electronic Terminal Factories (Afarte), Federico Hellemeyer.
A particular phenomenon happened with notebooks. From the businesses consulted by this newspaper they affirm that the demand was even higher than that of telephones. The explanation points to the forced growth of teleworking and online classes at all educational levels. “There are families with two or three school-age boys who had a single computer in the house and ended up fighting to use it. Many people who have the economic possibility went to the market to buy a notebook, "they warned.
At this point, for the electrical appliance houses there were two vital aspects: being able to grant financing in installments without interest and the online transaction with fast delivery to the home. "The sale of laptops tripled because of the isolation," they say.
The companies contacted by this newspaper did not want to accurately disseminate their current stock of electronic products "so as not to stoke the competition" but they agree that the flexibility of the quarantine in Tierra del Fuego was vital to start the production chain again and begin to add offer.
Luis Galli, president of the company Newsan, which manufactures devices exclusively for Motorola, admits that there was a temporary shortage and believes that "in around 90 days, production will normalize."
“Cell phones is the category of household appliances that best defends itself against crises. There is a constant replenishment, with around 50 million phones. It is simple: if a television breaks in a house, maybe they have another one, they go to watch the television in another environment and get ready. But if your cell phone breaks, you can't use your mom's. The case of notebooks is more complicated because there is no production in Argentina and exporters are going to prioritize other countries before us. For the home office there was a tremendous level of demand and the shortage is going to be much longer. ”
GS