Gigabyte has apologized for a comment it made about Chinese manufacturing that prompted social media outrage, led several marketplaces to remove its products from their platforms, and caused a $550 million drop in its market value.
According to Bloomberg, the company published a blog post on Monday slamming its competitors for outsourcing production to Chinese manufacturers that make products in a “low-cost, low quality way.” (The blog post has since been deleted.)
That comment was seen as an indictment of Chinese manufacturing writ large instead of a targeted criticism of Gigabyte’s rivals— which is what prompted the removal of its products from the JD.com and Suning.com e-commerce platforms.
The market’s response was also swift. Gigabyte’s share price had fallen by nearly 10% when the market closed in Taipei, according to Yahoo Finance, which means its market value has dropped by about $550 million since the blog post’s publication.
All of which led Gigabyte to publish an apology for that blog post.
“A few days ago, part of the text content published on our official website is seriously inconsistent with the facts,” Gigabyte said, per Google Translate. “It is caused by poor internal management of the company. We sincerely apologize for the discomfort caused to you.”
The company also said it will “strengthen internal management and training to ensure that all employees are aware of the problem and pay attention to it.”
It’s hard to imagine such a strict response to a single blog post, but it’s also hard to accept that a throwaway comment about the quality of its competitors’ products led Gigabyte’s market value to plummet by over half a billion dollars, so we’ll call it even.