Mobile World Congress 2020 cancelled over Coronavirus fears

The spread of the disease made it impossible for MWC to proceed, says event organiser GSMA

Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2020, scheduled to take place in Barcelona later this month, has been cancelled over Coronavirus concerns.

The GSM Association (GSMA), the organiser of the event, announced yesterday that the spread of the disease had made it impossible for MWC to proceed.

"With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event," John Hoffman, CEO GSMA Limited, said in a statement.

"The Host City Parties respect and understand this decision. The GSMA and the Host City Parties will continue to be working in unison and supporting each other for MWC Barcelona 2021 and future editions," Hoffman added.

MWC, the world's biggest phone show, was scheduled to take place from 24^th - 27^th February. The event provides mobile companies from across the world an opportunity to exhibit their products in front of global audience. Many companies also use this platform to launch their newest smartphones. The annual event is usually attended by more than 100,000 people.

This year, all major smartphone brands from China - including Huawei, Oppo, OnePlus, Xiaomi and ZTE - were set to appear, and workers had even started setting up the convention centre for the event.

However, LG announced earlier this month that it was pulling of MWC due to coronavirus concerns. Ericsson also cancelled its appearance, before Intel, Nokia, Cisco, Nvidia, Vivo, BT and several other companies decided to withdraw from the event, all citing coronavirus fears.

For some mobile companies, it could mean organising their own events now or just issue press releases to announce their newest products.

In any case, the cancellation of MWC 2020 is surely a big loss for the organisers as well as for mobile companies. The loss is huge is in terms of the millions of dollars wasted, only a small part of which would probably be recovered by insurance.

The GSMA had reportedly urged Spanish authorities to declare a health emergency in Spain before it cancels the MWC 2020.

A report by Wired suggested that GSMA's insurance policies would not cover the losses to organisers should they decide to cancel the event, without the authorities declaring it a health emergency first - which they haven't.

Smaller mobile companies will also suffer from cancellation of MWC 2020, as they will have to wait for a number of months before they get another opportunity to press the flesh of executives from all of the world's mobile operators, congregated in one place.