The 2020 MWC has been officially cancelled, following days of rumors and company pull-outs. Officials of the GSMA met to discuss the possibility of cancelling the Mobile World Congress Event, which was scheduled to take place in Barcelona on February 23rd through the 27th. Discussions of cancellation came after a few big parties such as Cisco, Sprint, and Facebook pulled out. The continued spread of the deadly coronavirus is what promoted those telecommunication companies, among others, to skip the now-cancelled event.
In a statement made Wednesday afternoon, the GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communication) CEO said, "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."
The Coronavirus has killed over a thousand people at this point, with reports of at least one person infected in 25 countries across the world. Before the formal cancellation, the GSMA had suggested safety tips including not shaking hands and committing to increased cleaning and disinfection efforts. They also banned attendees coming from Hubei and required people who had recently been in China to show proof they'd been outside the country for more than two weeks.
Moving Forward Without the MWC
The Mobile World Congress is an annual event that has been running since 1987, and has been in Barcelona since 2006. Put on by GSMA, the event saw 109,500 attendees last year, and usually features some of the biggest product reveals in the field. At 2019's conference, we saw the fold-able Huawei P30 phone announced as well as new flagships from LG, Nokia and Honor. Non-phone announcements included new headphones from Lenovo, a 5G hub from HTC and Microsoft's' HoloLens 2.
Even with the growing list of pull-outs before the event's cancellation, Samsung and Huawei were still committed to the event, with a lesser presence than normal. All planned reveals of phones and other hardware will have to be pushed back, which could be detrimental to some who need the exposure more than others. While there was no official announcements on what was slated to be revealed, many predicted announcements of new 5G phones, with the service taking off of late.
In the GSMA statement of cancellation, they did not mention any plans to re-schedule, instead looking forward to 2021. There are two additional MWC events outside of Barcelona slated for later in the year, which we'll have to see if the companies are patient enough for. MWC in Shanghai, China is scheduled for June 30th through July 2nd, with another in Los Angeles, California set for October.
Source: GSMA