The epidemic is growing at an alarming rate in the United States.

    As of 10 a.m. Beijing time on April 10, a total of 19462135 COVID cases were confirmed in the United States, an increase of 37,190 cases from the previous day.A total of 16,513 people died, 1,984 more than the previous day.It is the 18th consecutive day since March 23 that more than 10,000 new cases have been diagnosed in the United States.

    The Wall Street journal previously reported that the national unemployment rate had risen to 4.4% by the end of march, with at least 10 million new americans out of work.Some experts predict that unemployment could reach 20 million.

    "What has happened in the past month is something that American companies have never experienced before."In the Wall Street journal article, such a sentence stands out.In fact, it's not just American companies. Many foreign companies in the region, such as Honda motor co., are also facing major crises.

    Honda has always been proud not to lay off workers.Even during the great recession of 2008, the company stressed that it had not fired a single full-time employee.

    A sudden outbreak shattered Honda's pride.As of May 1, Honda will stop paying workers at its 10 U.S. plants.As a result of the outbreak, Honda suspended production at its U.S. plants on March 23 and will continue until at least May 1.

    In the middle of the winter, though, everyone has a hard time, but for Honda, it's a bit of an added insult to injury.

    In 2019, Honda's global sales fell 3.5 percent from a year earlier to 5.171 million vehicles.For the first three quarters (April 1, 2019 -- December 31, 2019), Honda's operating profit was 639.2 billion yen (41.5 billion yuan), down 3.1% from a year earlier, while its pretax profit fell 9.4% to 786.1 billion yen (51 billion yuan).

    As sales fell and the global economy wobbled, Honda made a series of adjustments.

    In February 2019, Honda announced plans to close its only UK plant, the Swindon plant in Wiltshire in the south of the country, by 2021.Honda faces difficulties in the UK and European markets due to tighter monitoring of emissions and uncertainty over brexit.

    After consolidating its European operations, Honda has also begun restructuring its Asian markets.

    In march, Honda shut down car production at its plant in the Philippines to retain only sales and after-sales service.In addition, Honda has shut down factories in Turkey and Argentina as part of a global restructuring plan.

    Behind the aggressive restructuring, Honda is clearly betting on China.After all, Honda's sales in China hit a record high of 1.554m units in 2019, up 12.22 per cent from a year earlier, even as the country suffered a slump.

    Even this year, Honda's sales in China were strong in the first quarter, despite the outbreak.In January, before the full impact of the outbreak had spread, Honda China sold 149,900 vehicles, up 9.8% from a year earlier.Among them, gac Honda's terminal sales reached 76,300 units, up 0.6% year on year, while dongfeng Honda's terminal sales were 73,600 units, up 21.3% year on year.

    By march, the average daily vehicle sales in China in the first three weeks were down 45% from a year earlier, according to the federation of automobile manufacturers. Although Honda's sales in China fell 50.8% in the same month, slightly higher than the current average, combined with the previous march, Honda's sales in the first quarter reached 222,000 units, down 33.7% from the same period last year.Especially dongfeng Honda is in the center of the outbreak in wuhan, this is not easy.

    At the same time, due to the current situation in China has been basically controlled, the country actively resume production, so the Chinese car market has become the only "Noah's ark" in the eyes of many car companies.

    "Guangben has started to resume production in late February and has resumed double-shift production in early march to try to overcome the impact of the epidemic," lu guozheng, head of gac Honda's public relations department, told first electric.He explained that despite the drop in sales due to the outbreak, "there were surplus orders in January and February itself, and it was a priority to match those orders when production resumed.""And" production is affected by the availability of parts and shifts ", so even if full production resumes, there will not be too much vehicle inventory.

    Lu guozheng believes that the second quarter has the confidence to restore the same period level, so the following guangben will continue to push forward production and sales at a pace, the launch of a number of new cars and activities to meet consumer demand.He further added, "recently we also have a number of new models on the market, SUV matrix will be fully renewed, including the mid - term change of the crown road, the 2020 model and hao ying rui · hybrid will also be fully to the store.

    Dongfeng Honda, in wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak in China, has rebounded even more strongly.Dongfeng Honda has resumed production at all three of its plants in wuhan, with about 6,000 employees on duty each day, maintaining a single-shift production model and restoring production to about 1,000 vehicles.Although capacity has recovered by only a third compared with a year ago, it has not been easy, and is expected to expand further in April.What is more noteworthy is that, according to dongfeng Honda, the company just returned to work, the company received 26,000 orders.