Sony extends closure of image sensor plants in Japan

Electronics giant Sony Corp on Sunday said production at its image sensor plant in Kumamoto, southern Japan, remained suspended as it assessed damage from a powerful earthquake.Operations at its image sensor plants in Nagasaki and Oita, also on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, fully resumed, the company said.The Kumamoto plant has been offline since Friday, while operations at the Nagasaki and Oita plants were partially suspended on Saturday.A 7.3 magnitude tremor struck early on Saturday morning, killing at least 32 people, injuring about 1,000 more and causing widespread damage. It was the second major quake to hit Kumamoto province on the island of Kyushu in just over 24 hours, reports Reuters.The massive quake in Japan has affected a great number of Japanese companies and it's to be noted that Sony makes imaging sensors for just about every decent smartphone in the market today. This includes the likes of Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi, to name a few.The actual impact on production of smartphones is still unknown at the moment.With inputs from Reuters