Disasters hit electronic makers hard

SHANGHAI - Don't bother with the salt and the iodine. Rather than public health in China, the emergency at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan is a far greater threat to the electronics market.

Japan is the chief supplier of the chips at the heart of cell phones, laptops and television sets manufactured in China. And the recent disasters have disrupted operations for many Japanese chip makers. Industry experts predict normal production won't resume for months.

The effects of an impending supply shortage are already being seen in consumer electronics malls in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities. The prices of various memory chips have jumped an average of more than 10 percent in the past few days, according to the Beijing-based ChinaByte.com, a website for IT professionals.