Breaking: Mobile World Congress has been cancelled

Mobile World Congress 2020 has been officially canceled. GSMA, the organization that puts on MWC in Barcelona each year, broke the news in a statement to Bloomberg. The event is being called off due to a growing number of companies pulling out of the show.

JUST IN: The 2020 Mobile World Congress has been canceled by GSMA because of #coronavirus fears.

In an emailed statement, John Hoffman, the CEO of GSMA, said the outbreak has made it “impossible” to hold the event #MWC2020 pic.twitter.com/PS1BqTCzU8

— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) February 12, 2020

This may not come as a surprise if you’ve been following the news. Phone manufacturers who had already dropped out of the show completely or canceled their presentations include LG, Sony, TCL, ZTE, Vivo, HMD Global, and others. With just under two weeks until the MWC was scheduled to begin, it became clear that the snowball effect would only get worse.

The reason behind all of these companies withdrawing is due to the coronavirus (now called COVID-19) outbreak. Many of the companies pointed to the potential health risk for the thousands of employees and attendees. GSMA CEO John Hoffman said the outbreak has made it “impossible” to hold the event.

Of course, there will likely still be a lot of mobile news to come later this month. Companies have been preparing for the show for a long time and they will still need to show off new products. It just won’t happen at MWC.

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