The main theme of this year, which has not lost its momentum to this day, is definitely the coronavirus. It has already caused serious damage to many companies, including Apple, which, due to the scale of its business, was almost the worst. She was forced not only to indefinitely close all her stores in China in order to prevent the spread of the disease, but also to curtail production. As a result, many goods were simply in short supply, and there is practically no chance of replenishing it. It would seem, what could be worse? But, as it turned out, maybe.
Coronavirus is hindering technology development, and it's not just words
The GSM Association, which organizes the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, has decided not to hold an exhibition this year. The Chief Executive Officer of the association, John Hoffman, told the Financial Times. According to him, the outbreak of the coronavirus made it impossible to hold the event, so the organizers reluctantly abandoned it. The refusal to hold the exhibition was quite unexpected, because a few days ago it was stated that the organizers would take all the necessary security measures, but the exhibition would take place.
When will MWC take place
2020 was the first year when the MWC decided not to conduct in principle
Taking into account the safe and healthy atmosphere of Barcelona and the host country, the GSM Association has decided to cancel the MWC'2020 due to the threat of a new coronavirus outbreak. Problems with ensuring the personal safety of visitors, their moving and other circumstances make it impossible to hold the event. However, next year everything will go according to plan and MWC'2021 will take place in Barcelona on schedule, the organizers of the exhibition said.
However, even if MWC'2020 had gone according to plan, it would not have been as interesting as originally planned. Indeed, since the end of January, major brands have begun to refuse to attend the exhibition, fearing the coronavirus. In particular, Amazon, Ericsson, Intel, LG, MediaTek, Nvidia, Sony, Vivo, Facebook, AT&T, Telus и Nokia. Some other manufacturers have announced that they will not hold their presentations at the MWC, but will do so in the online stream format. Despite this, it was promised that the exhibition stands will function, and everyone will be able to come to them to talk with the brand representatives and look at the latest technological innovations and prototypes, which are currently being developed.
What is MWC
In fact, MWC is such a large and significant event for the mobile technology industry that its refusal to hold it, obviously, greatly undermined the plans of corporations. The fact is that many brands have used it precisely as a platform for presenting new products. For example, Xiaomi in the past few years has been presenting branded flagships at MWC, and this year it was forced to voluntarily abandon a physical presentation in favor of an online broadcast. But since there will be no MWC, this may make it difficult to distribute test samples of the new product. And by the time journalists and IT observers get it in their hands, the hype will subside a little and, obviously, interest in the new Xiaomi Mi 10 will not be so great.
On the other hand, the cancellation of the MWC was quite expected. Some journalists who were invited to the exhibition were seriously going to refuse the trip even before its official cancellation, because they feared that some of the visitors would probably be sick with coronavirus, which means they could pass it on to them. By their own admission, they were even ready to sacrifice tickets and paid hotel reservations, just to protect themselves from illness. I don't blame them for their cowardice. After all, your own life and health are much more important than an interesting material or a review.