(Bloomberg) -- Renesas Electronics Corp. said it is aiming to resume full production at its fire-hit chip factory by the end of May, ahead of the previous target of late June.

Chief Executive Officer Hidetoshi Shibata gave the updated progress report at a briefing in Tokyo on Monday.

The Japanese chipmaker restarted partial production at the plant over the weekend, two days ahead of its original schedule. The facility in Naka, north of Tokyo, suffered a fire on March 19 and the company said previously it would need about 100 days to bring the factory back to full capacity.

“I appreciate all the help from our partners that enabled us to restart the factory without falling behind,” Shibata said.

Read more: Renesas Restarts Fire-Hit Chip Factory Days Ahead of Schedule

The incident hit as the global semiconductor industry is suffering through unprecedented shortages, leaving automakers in particular short of components that they need for their vehicles. Even before the fire, car manufacturers were expected to miss out on $61 billion of sales this year alone. Renesas is one of the top providers of automotive chips, used by virtually all the top carmakers.

Renesas warned in March that there would be a vacuum of about a month when the company would be unable to ship chips from the factory. The company had asked other chipmakers to deliver components to customers on its behalf, but estimated it would lose revenue of as much as 24 billion yen due to the fire.

“Sales in the second quarter could decrease due to the fire, which may reduce the company’s operating income by 10 billion to 15 billion yen,” Bloomberg Intelligence’s Masahiro Wakasugi said.

Renesas, whose chips are used by Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., gets about half its revenue from car chips. The Naka plant makes parts used in automotive and industrial applications.

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