The Mobile World Congress (MWC) is scheduled to happen this month from 24th to 27th, but this year the event will be severely affected by the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak in China. Towards the end of last week, four firms – LG, NVIDIA, Amazon and ZTE – had already cancelled their press conferences at MWC citing the virus outbreak.
Sony has also announced that they won’t attend the annual event.
“As we place the utmost importance on the safety and wellbeing of our customers, partners, media and employees, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting and participating at MWC 2020 in Barcelona, Spain,” the company wrote in a press release.
The company has opted to announce its new products that were to be released at the event via the Official Xperia YouTube channel. Sony will announce their products remotely from Japan on Monday 24th as from 10:30 am(local time).
NTT, the largest Japanese telco, has also withdrawn from the event today due to the virus outbreak, totalling to six.
The event organizers, GSMA, has continued to tighten rules that will help ensure the safety of the attendees at the event.
Part of the new rules which have been added during the weekend includes imposing a ban for any travellers from Hubei, temperature screening, and self-certification from attendees that they have not been in contact with an affected individual. Anyone from China must also prove they have been out of the country two weeks before the event.
The new rules are an addition to what the firm had announced last week including a ‘no-handshake policy,’ increased medical support onsite, microphone disinfecting and change protocol for all speakers, among others.
