Well, it finally happened and the big headline of the week is here, this year's Mobile World Congress has been officially canceled. This was something that many of us thought could happen after the significant casualties of several companies due to fear of the coronavirus or also called Covid-19.
This was to be expected and after several hours of uncertainty following the confirmation by the GSMA that the event was going ahead after the emergency meeting that took place today at 14:00 p.m., everything took a sudden turn a few minutes ago and its definitive cancellation, this year we will not have MWC.
John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA has been in charge of canceling this important event that is being held in the city of Barcelona. Hoffman, as the main person in charge of the event, could not contain the pressure of the large companies that got off the boat together with the main mobile phone operators and the cancellation was finally announced.
Obviously there is no zero risk of contagion and less in an event like the MWC, but from there to cancel it ... The problem is that all institutions (Government of Spain, Generalitat de Catalunya and the City Council of Barcelona) ensured sufficient measures not have to worry, but the losses of the large chain companies did a lot of damage, so much so that in the end there is no choice but cancel the event for the first time in its entire history since it has been done in our country.
What will happen to the MWC presentations?
Well, normally large companies hold their events on Sunday before the start of the Mobile World Congress and little or nothing is known about it at the moment. The companies now have a difficult situation with this cancellation and there are many loose ends after the decision to cancel the event. We will see what happens with all this in the next few hours but it is a hard blow for everyone, companies, organizers, media, users, city, country, etc., come on, it is a worldwide blow.
At the moment the mobile website only the safety data and other related information appear, there is no reference to cancellation but it will be updated in the next few minutes. It will also be necessary to see what happens with the payments of those who decided not to attend first (LG, Sony, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Vevo, Nvidia, Orange, Vodafone, NTT Docom, Intel and others) those who confirmed their attendance such as Xiaomi or Huawei and those who did not speak but what is evident is that we were without an event this year.
[Updated] this is the official statement from the GSMA with the news of the cancellation of the MWC. In the statement also they talk about joint work with the city of Barcelona for 2021 and future editions so until next year and the following.
To finish clarifying something, Apple has NEVER participated in any edition of the Mobile World Congress And in this one, I didn't plan to do it either.