Just when we thought things couldn’t get more sour at MWC 2020, Vivo and Intel reconsidered their decision to attend the event. What does this mean? They just officially joined the ranks of companies canceling their presence at the Mobile World Congress Barcelona this year.
Vivo, the sixth largest phone manufacturer in the world, and a company we’d been counting to see in Barcelona is not going to attend after all: “vivo has been closely monitoring the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (NCP) outbreak and continuously evaluating planned activities. The health and safety of our employees and the public are our top priority. Based on the present situation, we have decided to withdraw from our debut at MWC 2020 and other related events later this month in Barcelona, Spain.”
At this point, we can’t say we are that surprised although we have to say the absence of the new APEX 2020 at the show is a dissapointment. The phone is likely to appear on another occassion, hopefully very soon, but not necessarily in a context that will allow potential users check it out.
Intel is also going to refrain itself from exhibiting at MWC. Just like Vivo, Intel is thinking first and foremost about its employees and it refuses to expose them to any kind of danger. NTT Docomo is also thinking along the same lines and will not come to Barcelona.
Who else has been canceling their booth this year?
LG, Sony, Ericsson, NVIDIA, Amazon.
ZTE and TCL will continue to be at the show, but have canceled their press conferences.
It’s unclear yet how many more companies will withdraw from the show. And how many more industry analysts and media will attend, given the coronavirus threat looming on the horizon.
So far, though, there haven’t been enough to persuade GSMA to postpone the event or to cancel it altogether so if nothing drastically changes, MWC 2020 will open its doors this February 24.
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