The biggest international conference about mobile technology has fallen to the Coronavirus outbreak. Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the largest congress held yearly in Barcelona. It brings together some of the biggest tech companies in the world for an intense week of announcements and unveilings.

However, this year, amidst the panic surrounding COVID-19, the conference has been officially cancelled. In an official announcement from GSMA, the conference’s organisers, has announced that the current health climate has made it impossible for the conference to continue. It comes as a big blow to the industry as the event usually sees the likes of Nokia, HMD, Intel, LG and more make announcements for their new flagships.

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.

John Hoff man, Cheif Executive Officer, GSMA

However, the cancellation of the event doesn’t come as a surprise. In the days and weeks prior to the announcement, some of the biggest names taking part in MWC 2020 announced that they would be pulling out of the conference over health and safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus nCov-2019) outbreak. Ericsson, Intel, Sony, OPPO, Vivo, LG, NTTdocomo and more released statements in the days leading up to GSMA’s announcement.

While the cancellation is unfortunate, we have it on good authority that many of the announcements that were slated for MWC2020 will be made at a later date. So, do expect a trickle of announcements from companies that were slated for MWC in the coming weeks.