Although it has been said repeatedly that Apple will not have problems with component stocks due to the disaster in Japan, hard times are being announced for the company. Kureha, the largest producer of a special polymer used in li-ion batteries, has closed one of its plants in Japan due to recent earthquakes and nuclear power plant accidents. Without that special polymer, li-ion batteries cannot be produced, and for Apple this is the case results by decreasing the number of iPods/iPhones produced. Although the company's partners still have enough batteries in stock to continue production for several weeks, it is possible that Apple will reduce the production of certain models of iPod terminals.
A representative from Apple Inc. recently called Kureha Corp.'s offices in the US The problem: Apple was facing tight supplies of lithium-ion batteries used in its popular iPods, and they traced the supply bottleneck to the relatively obscure Japanese chemicals maker.
Kureha company representatives have announced that they will move their production equipment to another country, but until then the entire industry can expect problems with li-ion battery stocks. Unfortunately, Kureha had a 70% market share in terms of the production of that polymer and that factory in Japan was the only place where it produced something like that. It will be interesting to see how things will develop in the future and who will manage to capture the polymer stocks produced by the factories that are still active.
