NEW DELHI: Major tech companies such as Vivo, Intel and Sony have cancelled their plans to attend this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) over the coronavirus scare. MWC is the world’s biggest mobile tradeshow and is due to take place in Spain’s Barcelona from February 24-27.
“Vivo has been closely monitoring the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (NCP) outbreak and continuously evaluating planned activities... Based on the present situation, we have decided to withdraw from our debut at MWC 2020,” Vivo said.
The company added that it will soon introduce the APEX 2020 concept phone, which was originally planned to be showcased at MWC. The cancellations come despite the GSM Association’s newest measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Earlier, Japanese tech major Sony had said that it has been closely monitoring the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, which was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organisation on January 30, and places “the utmost importance on the safety and wellbeing of our customers, partners, media and employees.”