Pioneer Electronics and possibly other suppliers are hoping to avoid shortages of the modules that enable CarPlay and Android Auto in car radios.
As we reported, a short supply in some of the modules has caused General Motors to stop selling CarPlay/Android Auto over the next 5 or 6 weeks.
One of the modules for CarPlay and Android Auto is manufactured by Renesas in Japan, which was struck by an earthquake April 16, said Pioneer. Renesas factories experienced several weeks of disruption to manufacturing as a result.
Pioneer said it is now waiting to learn if its supply of the CarPlay/Android Auto modules will be restricted.
“In April, there was an earthquake in the part of Japan near Kumamoto. What we’re still trying to deduce, and we don’t have a final status, is if there will be any effect to our supply chain. There have been stories from General Motors, Toyota and others on delayed production from that factory,” said Pioneer VP Marketing Ted Cardenas.
He added, “At this time, we’ve been doing pretty well in meeting demand with our supply.” But he said, “There may be some shortfall in our supply based on both the fact that some of our peers are not shipping product, and then, what we’re currently trying to gauge, if we’ll be affected by the delay in production at Renesas.”
Renesas owns about 40 percent of the microcontroller market in the automotive industry, he said.
We have seen that the smaller screen size has had less consumer demand than the larger screen size in this category. I hope that is taken into consideration if there is a supply shortage. It would be better to be out of one model all together and have good supply of another than for there not to be enough of either or any model to go around. In addition with most all navigation units subject to this potential supply shortage there are roughly 8 to 10 models between navigation and multimedia only units times the two after market manufactures who are really in this category. It would better to have none of half of those models and ample supply of the others, with a couple offerings in multimedia only and a couple of offerings in navigation.
It would be nice if the reality of supply and demand would be seen in the 12 volt aftermarket if there is a shortage. Unfortunately even when there is not enough product to go around the fight for market share among manufacturers tends to interfere with the typical supply and demand benefits a retailer might see in shortage scenarios. Sensible allocations on these products could also alleviate some of the problem. Send products to where they get to the consumer first not to where they get transshipped or sit on one warehouse shelf until they can be sold sideways to someone else where house shelf. If product is short and it is going to float around for 30 days without filling consumer demand then don’t allocate to that 30 days worth of product.
Just a thought from an independent specialist retail perspective.