This is something I was thinking about when writing a couple of articles on the Japanese disaster & its impact on the Australian economy for work. Japan, apparently, accounts for 20 per cent of the worlds semi-conductor production and 40 per cent of the worlds flash memory production. I couldn't find anything on the material impacts on production at Japan's facilities, but suffice to say if a significant portion of their capacity was knocked out of action (be it through the earthquake, tsunami or power outages), technology companies would feel it very quickly. In saying that, however, I did read that tech companies carry roughly two weeks of spare supplies in case something like this happened.
My thinking is that these two components are present in pretty much all manufactured technology goods, and any shortage would be felt across the entire supply chain. This would cause prices to rise, similar to when the oil price shoots up rapidly (but, naturally, the impact is less severe).
I ask you, dear P/R'ers, do you think that we could be on the verge of the first technology-based supply shock?
Topic: Japan's Quake Could Cause the World's First Technology-based Price Shock (Read 1663 times)