Sony Japan officially announced on Thursday that their factory in Thailand has been shut down as a result of the flooding that has affected extensive regions of Thailand and Cambodia. Consequently, the November releases of the Sony a65 and Nex 7 have been postponed indefinitely.
This is just the latest announcement from a region that has been devastated by flooding. Two weeks previously, Nikon announced that their Ayutthaya, Thailand plant was submerged and had been shut down. An update on Friday indicated that the building remains submerged in approximately two meters (6 feet) of water. Nikon’s facility in Ayutthaya produced many of the company’s entry level SLRs and compact cameras, including the D3100, D5100, and the D7000, as well as many consumer-grade lenses.
Canon has also been affected. Though their cameras are made in Japan, they operate a “printer-related” factory in Thailand that has been closed.
The Nation, a Thai news agency, has listed the status of the damaged Sony and Nikon facilities as having “No Prospect of Recovery” 1The Nation, Oct 18th, 2011 ]. Nikon’s own press releases have been less definitive, saying “We still have difficulty to grasp the overall damages of our equipment and facility since access to the premises continues to be prohibited. […] We are unable to define how soon operation will be resumed.” [2. Nikon Press Release, Oct. 21, 2011
