Taiwan-based digital camera makers Altek and Ability, in response to Japan's earthquake, pointed out that they have already confirmed with their Japan-based upstream CCD suppliers and are currently seeing no shortages in short-term supply; however, for the long term, the status may change as suppliers could see issues from their own upstream material suppliers, as well as problems with transportation and power.
Although Japan-based digital camera brands Panasonic, Canon and Nikon have all closed down their production lines and evacuated their employees in Japan, since most of the vendors' production lines in Japan are used for manufacturing high-end models, with consumer models being made at their plants in China and Thailand or outsourced to Taiwan-based makers, the earthquake is unlikely to have a significant impact on digital camera production for consumers, the two companies noted.
Ability currently has about 90% of its CCD components supplied by Sony with Altek having about 70-80% supplied by Sharp. Since Sharp's CCD plants in Japan are far from the worst-hit zones, while Sony's CCD plants are located in Thailand, CCD supply in the future should not face any issues.
Ability pointed out that components for internal digital camera chassis will not see any seriously supply issues since it is easy to find alternative supply sources for those components, but some key components such as flash capacitors and battery cells are still supplied mainly by Japan-based players, and so the company is currently still confirming with its upstream suppliers to ensure they will be able to provide smooth supply.
Since Japan is still waiting to restore transportation, communications and power supplies, the Taiwan-based digital camera makers are currently only able to confirm with their first-tier component suppliers about their damage status. Since the makers currently still have a safe level of inventory, they should not have any production issues for the next 1-2 months.
As for whether Japan-based brands will shift their orders, the makers pointed out that they have not yet received any notice from their clients.