MWC canceled for the first time in 33 years due to COVID-19
Published2020.02.13 09:04Promotion of new 5G and Android products hit a snag
MWC 2020 has finally been canceled.
John Hoffman, CEO of the GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association), announced on the 12th the official cancellation of MWC 2020, which was scheduled to take place over four days from the 24th. This was due to global concerns over COVID-19.
Until the 10th, the GSMA had consistently provided updates on COVID-19 and maintained its commitment to holding MWC 2020. It also announced measures to restrict entry to attendees who had passed through or arrived from Hubei Province, China. However, several major companies announced plans to either send only a small number of executives or cancel their attendance altogether, leading to the cancellation of the event.
Even in Korea, LG Electronics was the first company in the world to announce its intention not to participate, and the three mobile carriers announced that they would only send a minimum number of personnel. Kia Motors was scheduled to be the first domestic automaker to participate in MWC, but has also announced that it will not participate.
Overseas, AT&T, NTT Docomo, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom, McAfee, MediaTek, British Telecom, Sony, Sprint, Cisco, Amazon, Ericsson, Nvidia, Orange, Intel, and Facebook have announced their intention not to participate due to the potential risks of COVID-19.
Chinese companies, the epicenter of COVID-19, were no exception. Royole and Vivo announced their boycott, while ZTE, Xiaomi, and even Huawei, a major MWC sponsor, announced they were scaling back their delegations. Huawei, hit hard by the US-China trade war, had hoped to make up for its lackluster performance at CES 2020 with MWC 2020, but its plans were disrupted by the cancellation of MWC. Furthermore, Chinese companies reportedly struggled to properly prepare for the exhibition due to COVID-19.
Meanwhile, MWC, the world's largest IT and mobile exhibition, attracts over 100,000 attendees from 200 countries each year. Held in Barcelona, Spain, since 2006, MWC has been used by Android OS-based smartphone manufacturers, excluding Samsung Electronics, to announce new products.
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