The Mobile World Congress 2020 is going to commence later this month, but a lot of major companies have decided to back out due to Covid-19 outbreak in China. Joining the list of companies that won't be participating in the major tech gig will be HMD Global and Nokia, which usually acquires a prominent spot in the MWC floor.
Nokia's decision to skip MWC 2020 doesn't come as a surprise as many tech giants have backed out of the tech conference citing health concern, but its absence will surely leave a void at the world's largest phone and telecom trade show event.
"MWC Barcelona has always been a key event in our annual calendar and we were very excited to showcase our new products to our partners, customers, media and fans. However, the health and safety of our employees, customers, and stakeholders is our highest priority. We believe the prudent decision is to cancel our participation at Mobile World Congress," HMD said in a statement on Wednesday.
With this decision, Nokia joins the growing list of companies that backed out of MWC this year. Amazon, Ericsson, Vivo, Facebook and Sony have already confirmed that they won't be attending MWC 2020 in Barcelona. In fact, major telecom companies, including Deutsche Telekom and BT have decided against participating in the trade fair.
Nokia fans disappointed
Without a Nokia booth at the MWC floor, fans won't be witnessing any new smartphones. Nokia was highly expected to launch Nokia 8.2, Nokia 5.2 and Nokia 1.3 along with a new model from Nokia's Original series.
Nokia 8.2 was set out to succeed the Nokia 8.1 smartphone and strongly hold the fort for Nokia in the upper mid-range category. One of the biggest highlights of the Nokia 8.1 was supposed to be 5G. As for Nokia 5.2 and Nokia 1.3, both phones would target budget shoppers with EUR 169 and EUR 79 price tags, respectively.
A new timeline
After cancelling participation in MWC, which was the platform to launch new phones for Nokia, fans needn't be disappointed. The company has promised to share a new timeline for new product announcements soon.
"We will get back to you soon with new date for introducing new awesome Nokia phones," HMD's chief product officer said.
