Gigabyte recently told its partners that California’s struggle to respond to the COVID-19 crisis has caused shipment delays, CRN reported Thursday, because there simply aren’t enough workers in key ports to unload its products from shipping containers.
CRN said the disclosure arrived via a presentation called “2021 Q1 Supply Chain Review” that “bears the Aorus name.” Gigabyte uses that branding for a variety of components, peripherals, and pre-built systems made specifically for PC gaming.
The presentation reportedly claimed products from 15 containers that arrived in the Los Angeles port in early December still hadn‘t been moved along the supply chain. Similar issues were said to have affected shipping containers sent to Long Beach.
CRN said that Gigabyte cited a Los Angeles Times report from January which claimed that “nearly 700 dockworkers at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have contracted COVID-19” and that “hundreds more are taking virus-related leaves.”
California grappled with rising COVID-19 case numbers from November 2020 to the end of January. Active cases appear to have fallen in recent weeks, according to the state’s official statistics, but they’re still higher than they were for much of 2020.
Gigabyte’s shipping woes reportedly extend beyond these ports in California—CRN said the presentation also cited increased freight costs, chip shortages, and increased demand for certain components related to Bitcoin’s latest price surge.
