Apple, considered to be one of the most valuable brands in the world, is taking the lead in fighting the global Coronavirus pandemic. The company has already donated 20 million face masks across the globe. CEO Tim Cook says they’ve also started manufacturing face shields with the capacity of churning out 1 million every week.

The announcement comes amid reports of massive equipment shortage for healthcare staff. Most countries were not prepared to tackle the virus-backed pandemic and essential resources like masks, gloves, protection suites, and more. To bridge this gap, the company said its working with governments to distribute supplies where they are most needed.

Cook further explained that each box has 100 face shields that are fully adjustable and can be assembled in a couple of minutes. Currently, their looking at a target of shipping 1 million face shields, and will slowly ramp up production in the near future. These shall be distributed within the U.S. Cook confirmed that the first batch of face shields was delivered last week to a few hospitals in Silicon Valley.

Apple is dedicated to supporting the worldwide response to COVID-19. We’ve now sourced over 20M masks through our supply chain. Our design, engineering, operations and packaging teams are also working with suppliers to design, produce and ship face shields for medical workers. pic.twitter.com/3xRqNgMThX

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 5, 2020

With an ongoing company-wide effort, product designers, engineers, and suppliers are working together to ensure a seamless flow of equipment.

Apple is also joining hands with 3D printing based startups and companies to leverage the technology and utilize it in a constructive way for the crisis. These companies have also succeeded in 3D printing face shields and backing of a giant like Apple could help them massively as far as management and distribution chain is concerned.

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As general rules, the CDC or The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed these to help with preventing the spread of COVID-19:

• Stay home when sick
• Cover coughs and sneezes
• Frequently wash hands with soap and water
• Clean frequently touched surfaces

Xiaomi Corporation is an internet, smartphone, and smart hardware company. Their products are fundamentally connected by their Internet of Things(“IoT”) platform. And, they’ve just hit the jackpot with their audited consolidated results for the year 2019.

Their Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Mr. Lei Jun says: “Despite headwinds from the Sino-US trade war and global economic downturn, Xiaomi stood out in 2019 with a commendable set of results as our revenue exceeded RMB200 billion for the first time.”

2019 was a good year for Xiaomi. They’ve managed to achieve significant growth across all of their business segments. They’ve earned themselves a total revenue of over CNY 200 billion for the first time (reaching CNY 205.8 billion).

Xiaomi managed to celebrate several key milestones. From successfully launching their independently operated dual-brand, Xiaomi and Redmi, focusing on ‘5G+AIoT’ as a strategic roadmap, to their inaugural entries into the prestigious ranks of not just the Fortune Global 500 but also, BrandZ’s Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands.

Mr. Lei Jun says, “while the entire world is still under the dark shadows of COVID-19, we have maintained our keen focus on efficiency to tide over this economic ‘black swan’ with everyone. At Xiaomi, we firmly believe that our long-term business success is underpinned by technological innovations… Overall, we remain committed to using technology to connect and improve lives everywhere in future.”

For the first time since the U.S. imposed trade sanctions on Huawei, the company has acknowledged that its sales have been affected. Even though the company’s revenue grew by almost 20 percent to nearly US$ 121 billion, it says the numbers could’ve been higher had the sanctions not been imposed.

Last year, Huawei was added on a U.S. blacklist known as the Entity List. It restricted American firms from doing business with the Chinese telecom giant. For the end-user, it meant that Huawei phones won’t have Google apps pre-installed out-of-the-box. Two of its most recent flagships — the Mate 30 and the P40, were released without licensed Google apps.

Eric Xu, Huawei’s rotating chairman, told CNBC that they’re projecting a revenue loss of US$ 10 billion due to the ban. The ban hasn’t come to full effect yet, but it’ll be extremely damaging for their international expansion plans in the future. The company wants to transact with Google, but the U.S. administration has left no choice for either of them.

The ban has not only sealed off the American market for the company, but it also can’t source components and other software technologies from American counterparts. Google is just one of these examples. Huawei can’t even acquire Intel processors for its laptops.

Huawei never had a considerable smartphone market presence in the North American country. This is not a big deal for the company in its home market China because Google apps have been banned there for years now.

As a mitigation plan, the company accelerated the development of its own operating system called Harmony OS, but it’s restricted to TVs for now. To bridge the gap of missing Google apps, the company has also been actively pushing its own suite of apps via Huawei Mobile Services.