Honda Motor will have to cut down production at plants in Japan and China in coming weeks, due to fallout of the global chip shortage.
The company will halt output in Japan on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, a spokesperson mentioned on Thursday, without specifying which plants will be affected. Moreover, its three facilities in joint venture with Guangqi Honda Automobile, in China, will be offline from Dec. 29 to Jan. 2.
Honda said it anticipated getting the production back on track from late November, but the looming suspension of some of its factories indicates ongoing snarls in the supply chain. Honda shares declined 1.5% in Tokyo.
Carmakers around the world have suffered their output as production plans were thrown into disarray of late after China blocked Nexperia — owned by Chinese company Wingtech Technology — from exporting products made locally.
Hondas suffering has been hard, with the chip shortage causing it to reduce its sales forecast to 3.34 million units from 3.62 million. It had previously curbed or suspended output at some plants in North American due to the same issue.
Nexperia manufactures semiconductors used in vehicle control systems for functions such as using windshield wipers and opening windows.