The world's largest glove maker is struggling to keep up with demand because of coronavirus-related panic buying

Havovi Cooper

April 1, 2020 9:35 PM

The coronavirus pandemic is causing an unprecedented surge in protective equipment.

The largest glove manufacturer in the world, Malaysia's Top Glove Corporation, is ramping up production to meet the demand.
The company is having to limit order sizes to cope with a shortage of supplies.
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The largest glove manufacturer in the world is seeing an unprecedented surge in demand because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The manufacturer, Top Glove Corporation in Malaysia, is ramping up production at its 44 factories, which altogether produce 200 million natural and synthetic rubber gloves a day.

But even that's not enough to keep up with the dire need for gloves, as more than 200 countries and territories globally have reported cases of the coronavirus.

Across the world, overburdened hospitals have warned about their critical lack of resources as new coronavirus cases skyrocket.

The World Health Organization warned last week that one of the most urgent threats to virus containment efforts is the "chronic global shortage of personal protective equipment."

That includes products such as N95 masks, goggles, and gloves anything that acts as a barrier between a person's skin, mouth, nose, or eyes and a viral infection.

But while some protective items are only necessary for hospital staff, everyday people are buying gloves to stay safe. And with cases surging in Europe and the United States, the manufacturer expects a product shortage "because some customers panic order," executive chairman Lim Wee Chai said.

"For example, normally they order 10 containers a month, but now they suddenly increase to 20 containers, so they double," he told Reuters .

Lim says the company is racing to fulfill every order, and will limit the number of units per customer to avoid running out.

To cope with the demand, the company has adjusted its delivery time from 30 days to sometimes as long as 150 days for bigger orders. It's also adding new machines every week to increase its production by as much as 30%.

With two-thirds of the global glove industry based in Malaysia , companies like Top Glove are being asked to meet local needs first. As of April 1, over 2,900 people have tested positive for the virus in the Southeast Asian country.