The absences of Sony, Ericsson, NVIDIA, and Amazon from Mobile World Congress 2020 due to the coronavirus are notable. Understandably, this will be detrimental to the event organizers, who are now without four major companies. But the latest withdrawal is perhaps the most significant of all. Intel has just announced that it will not be attending MWC due to the threat of the coronavirus.
The reason given is the same as before: prevention of possible infection. It hasn't helped much that GSMA, the event organizers, announced special measures to prevent contagion. Understandably, no company wants to risk the health and lives of its employees , even if the outbreak is thousands of kilometers from Barcelona.
[amazon box="B07P871J57"]Neither will Intel attend the MWC
To announce this, Intel has released a short statement explaining why they are canceling support. They emphasize that they do so because of an "increase in their concern" and that they seek to preserve "the safety and well-being of their employees and collaborating companies."
The safety and well-being of all our employees and partners is our top priority. Therefore, we have decided to withdraw from this year's Mobile World Congress as a precaution. We thank the GSMA for their understanding and look forward to attending and supporting future Mobile World Congress events.
Announces Intel's statement
For now, Xiaomi will indeed attend the event and will present the Mi 10 devices on February 23. Other major companies such as Huawei, Qualcomm, and Microsoft will also be present . It's possible that other companies will ultimately drop out of the event due to this wave of cancellations.
We don't know how far the GSMA will be able to sustain the event in the end if big companies keep falling. Some less known as the operator NTT, Docomo or Gigaset will not attend the event either. And it is that despite the exceptional measures, the guarantee that a case cannot occur in the event does not exist.
