Facebook Says Coronavirus Will Impact Oculus Headset Production
Facebook Says Coronavirus Will Impact Oculus Headset Production
(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. said the global outbreak of the deadly coronavirus is likely to impact production of its Oculus virtual reality headsets, which are produced in China.
The Oculus Quest, Facebook’s wireless headset released last year, is out of stock in some regions, according to VR news website UploadVR, and a Facebook spokeswoman said that high demand, and the coronavirus, may impact the device’s availability moving forward.
“Oculus Quest has been selling out in some regions due to high demand,” the company said in a statement. “Like other companies we’re expecting some additional impact to our hardware production due to the coronavirus. We’re taking precautions to ensure the safety of our employees, manufacturing partners and customers, and are monitoring the situation closely. We are working to restore availability as soon as possible.”
Facebook told employees in late January to cancel all non-essential trips to China because of the coronavirus outbreak, and a person familiar with the company told Bloomberg at the time that it was looking into facilities in other countries, like Vietnam, to help pick up production impacted in China.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kurt Wagner in San Francisco at kwagner71@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.