The Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2020 convention has just been hit with another wave of withdrawals as concerns around the spread of the coronavirus have escalated. The virus, which has infected roughly 40,000 people and killed 910 (at the time of writing), has been cited as the reason why many more companies are officially withdrawing from MWC.
Announced late on Sunday night, Nvidia confirmed they won’t attend MWC this year, making them the first American company to withdraw, alongside non-American Ericsson and LG who announced their withdrawal last week. Now, the latest no-go for MWC is Amazon, arguably the biggest loss for the convention.
While Amazon was unlikely to show off some new kind of Bezos phone, they were expected to delve more into Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing service. Their reasoning is familiar, citing the “outbreak and continued concerns about the new coronavirus”.
The Mobile World Congress will still take place, as the showrunners are committed to keeping things going. Chinese based company Huawei will still be attending but has clarified that they will go to greater lengths than usual concerning sanitation and personal health. These measures include banning participants hailing from China’s Hubei province, temperature screenings and the use of European workers instead of Chinese employees.
While MWC is still a few weeks away, the floodgates seem to be opening for many big businesses, meaning that the potential lack of networking opportunities could make the trip far less appealing for many others. Only time will tell how big MWC 2020 will actually be.
