Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world forcing people to stay at home and many public events to switch to online-only formats. The world’s biggest event for smartphones, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, was one of the casualties. The organizers decided to skip 2020 after many delays, to return only in 2021. But with the vaccination taking a long time and the concerns with new virus variants, we don’t know if the MWC 2021 is really certain at this point. The exhibition is set to take place between June 28 and July 1 in Barcelona, Spain. It will have as many as 50,000 people attending. However, many companies already confirmed that they are pulling out the event. Now, Samsung is the latest company to move to online-only presentations.
The Korean firm will certainly be a huge miss for the MWC 2021. If you recall, Samsung has been one of the strongest companies in the event. The Korean firm made many of its big revealings during the conference. Now, however, if Samsung Electronics has anything to unveil at the MWC, it will do so virtually. We believe that the company may showcase some of its news foldable smartphones, or at least, less appealing devices. According to rumors, the Korean firm is ditching this year’s Galaxy Note series and will bring only foldable smartphones in August.
Gizchina News of the week
“The health and safety of our employees, partners, and customers is our number one priority. Therefore we have decided to withdraw from exhibiting in-person at this year’s MWC. We look forward to participating virtually and continuing to work with GSMA and industry partners to advance new mobile experiences.” wrote Samsung in a statement.
Despite the growing concerns, the organizer of GSMA is taking some measures to prevent COVID-19 from spreading at the event. For instance, it will require attendees to show a negative test before arriving. They will have to be retested every three days as well. Apparently, this isn’t enough for Samsung as well as for other companies.
The Korean giant now joins Sony, Nokia, Google, and Ericsson that already have pulled out of the exhibition. Moreover, companies such as British Telecom, Facebook, Oracle, and others will skip the event as well. Considering that the amount of companies skipping the event by the days is growing, we believe that it’s just a matter of time until the GSMA decides to delay or cancel this year’s edition.
