Another big player(ish) has just pulled out of Mobile World Congress 2020

As appears to have become a trend due to fears of the spreading coronavirus, Nokia has issued a statement in which they have specified that they will no longer be attending Mobile World Congress 2020. This comes just days after Amazon pulled out of MWC and a week after LG and Nvidia cancelled their plans.

It’s a terrible time to be hosting a worldwide convention, apparently. Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus many people have become wary of travelling overseas for any reason whatsoever, including major technology companies. With Mobile World Congress just a few weeks away, I can only image the organisers sweating bullets as more and more brands are pulling out of the show, the latest being Nokia.

HMD Global, the home of Nokia phones, has withdrawn from MWC and cancelled all participation in an effort to safeguard the health of employees and share-holders. “MWC Barcelona has always been a key event in our annual calendar and we were very excited to showcase our new products to our partners, customers, media and fans. However, the health and safety of our employees, customers, and stakeholders is our highest priority”, reads the statement.

HMD Global has mentions in the same press release that they will update users on any new timeline regarding the release of future products. Nokia is only the latest in a long time of major companies to have withdrawn from MWC with Amazon and Nvidia pulling out of the show last weekend and LG cancelling their plans last week. It still remains to be seen whether it’s worth having MWC in the first place but given that Huawei has already confirmed that they will still be in attendance and Samsung still being present, despite a scaled down presence, the outcome for MWC 2020 is still very much up in the air.