The coronavirus has already had a major impact around the world, let alone in the global tech community. However, despite the problems it is causing, it appears that the biggest cell phone launch of the year will go ahead as planned.

DigiTimes reports that although iPhone 12 production may be delayed beyond June 2020, Apple intends to unveil the iPhone at its September launch event, as it has done with every iPhone generation since the iPhone 5.

Initially, DigiTimes (via MacRumors) reported that the iPhone 9/iPhone SE 2 (rumored to be released in May) is likely to make it to launch largely unaffected by the coronavirus outbreak, at least according to DigiTimes' unnamed sources, The iPhone 12 could be delayed because Apple is no longer sending engineers to check the development process. This could have meant a delay, but now it appears that this is no longer an issue, even if the start of production is later than expected.

Many high-tech manufacturers, including Apple, have production facilities in a small number of Chinese cities. Since the coronavirus has hit China the hardest of all the countries in the world, the long-term impact on high-tech production could be severe. Fortunately, despite some problems caused by longer-than-planned factory closures and mass employee retirements, the iPhone 9 and iPhone 12 appear to be going on sale as planned, even if production will be reduced and the supply of phones may be limited at launch.

The coronavirus not only caused thousands of deaths worldwide, with many more confirmed cases, but also caused the cancellation of Mobile World Congress 2020, the world's largest exhibition of smartphones and related technologies. This was despite special precautions taken by the organizer GSMA, as several companies withdrew from the event as a precaution against the disease.