Ed Tech Alert - Coronavirus and the Impact on K-12 Education

Following the Department for Education in England’s announcement to close all schools until further notice in the bid to control the COVID-19 outbreak, teaching staff have been resiliently rolling out home learning contingency plans.

The spread of COVID-19 across the world has been rapid and the Ed Tech sector as a whole has been impacted. Key challenges have been centred around the supply of mobile PC’s, as schools begin to close in many countries and distance learning becomes a priority.

Unseasonably high demand for mobile PC’s is occurring both in terms of direct and channel sales, with the latter looking to inventory build ahead of Q2 to also meet increasing near-term requirements.

This calls into question device supply – with concerns over the speed at which the ODM’s in China are able to spin back up to full production capacity and how soon their component suppliers can return to running at close-to full strength. Even one weak link in the chain can have serious ramifications on the supply of devices. This leads to growing concerns over Q2 and the ability to meet planned demand, if the supply chain remains compromised due to potential device shortages and lengthening lead times occurring.

Futuresource will continue to monitor the situation, providing an update in a more detailed blog over the course of next week.

These are without doubt unprecedented times that we are currently experiencing. The effects of the COVID-19 virus are far and wide, both privately and across all industries. Our professional and dedicated team are working remotely and are ready for the challenge more than ever.

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About the author

Michael Boreham

Michael joined Futuresource Consulting in 1990 and is a Business Studies graduate from the University of Bedfordshire. Michael is a member of the Education team and leads the research and analysis in the K-12 PC Market.

Michael is involved with creating quarterly reports on the development of the Global Mobile PC Market. In previous roles Michael was part of the Home Entertainment team tracking content global industry developments and was part of the Futuresource team monitoring the emergence of Virtual Reality.