We all probably are aware of somebody that has been affected by the Volcano eruption in Iceland in one way or another, probably stranded somewhere waiting news on the flight disruption to be rectified.
But how many of us have actually thought outside of our own little windows, the ash cloud hasn’t just affected those travellers waiting to board flights. Most mobile phones are shipped via airplanes. So far the impact that this has had on vendors is variable.
A reseller in Sweden has suffered some short delays so far. Most phone manufacturers have rerouted their shipments to countries where the airports have remained open, and then proceeded to send the phones via trucks to their destinations according to Daniel Lindholm chief executive officer at Swedish reseller the Phone House. Switching to trucks as apposed to planes has resulted in a 3 day delay.
The majority of phones come to Europe from Asia and Smartphone maker HTC which also ship by air have said that the trouble in Europe hasn’t affected their shipments so far. There is no shortage of HTC phones and we don’t anticipate any said Maggie Cheng a representative from HTC.
Sadly not all operators have been so lucky. Swedish operator 3 have seen the impact on the availability of the HTC Desire, the shortage is not only caused by the popularity of both the Desire and also the Nexus One but the ash cloud has aggregated the situation , a spokesman at 3 confirmed.
Source – news.idg.no