In a major setback to GSMA, the body that holds Mobile World Congress, other companies have revealed that they will not attend the event due to coronavirus outbreak. Facebook, AT&T, Sprint and Cisco has confirmed that they are withdrawing from the MWC event due to coronavirus concerns.
Facebook in a statement to CNET confirmed that it will not attend the MWC 2020 event. “Out of an abundance of caution, Facebook employees won’t be attending this year’s Mobile World Congress due to the evolving public health risks related to coronavirus,” a company spokesman said Tuesday in a statement. “We will continue to collaborate with the GSMA and our partners and thank them for their efforts.”
AT&T in a statement said: “After careful discussions and planning, we have decided that we will not participate in GSMA Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2020. We value our participation in important industry groups like GSMA and deeply respect the steps they have already taken to protect attendees. Unfortunately, the most responsible decision is to withdraw our participation from the event t safeguard our employees and customers.”
Cisco in a statement said: We have made the difficult decision to withdraw from participating in Mobile World Congress scheduled for Feb 24-27 in Barcelona due to concerns about the current outbreak of Coronavirus. We continue to keep those directly impacted by this situation in our thoughts and prayers.”
Sprint has confirmed that it will also be skipping MWC “due to concerns around the novel coronavirus.” The companies join the long list of companies that will not attend the MWC 2020 event. The list now includes MediaTek, Intel, and more. Vivo has recently announced that it will not attend the event. Other brands like Sony, Amazon, LG, NVIDIA, Ericsson and more has revealed that they will not attend this year’s Mobile World Congress.