German auto parts supplier Continental believes the ongoing shortage of semiconductors will not be resolved any time soon.
During a recent video call, Continental chief executive Nikolai Setzer said that the impacts of the shortage will continue to be felt for the rest of the first quarter before starting to ease in the second quarter. With that being said, the shortage will affect some areas of the automotive industry for the rest of the year, Auto News notes.
“[2021] has been subdued so far due to the shortage of semiconductors,” Continental chief financial officer Wolfgang Schaefer said in the earnings call. “The effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic remain a source of uncertainty too. All in all, 2021 will therefore remain challenging.”
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Schaefer added that Continental informed its clients of the developing chip shortage as soon as it could: “I don’t think we informed our clients too late. We started very early, as far as I know we were the first, to talk to the OEMs and inform them about the situation.”
Like many car manufacturers and other automotive suppliers, Continental felt the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and plans to cut or transfer 30,000 jobs. However, the company does expect global passenger-car output to rebound between 9 per cent and 12 per cent throughout 2021.
Continental’s statements come just a couple of days after fellow automotive parts supplier Bosch announced that it will open an automotive chip factory in Dresden, Germany in June. This facility will produce application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) microchips used by electric and hybrid electric vehicles, helping to alleviate some of the current bottlenecks being experienced by the industry.
