GSMA issued a press release on February 12th announcing the cancellation of MWC 2020, originally scheduled for February 24-27th. GSMA said the cancellation was based on global considerations of the coronavirus outbreak, travel concerns and other circumstances.

Prior to the cancellation of the show, the GSM Association mentioned that all visitors from Hubei Province, China will be banned from participating in the event. In addition, all exhibitors who have been to China must prove (passport stamp, health certificate) that they have stayed outside China for 14 days before attending, and all participants must prove that they have not contacted the infected person.

In addition, before the GSM Association announced the cancellation of 2020 MWC, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, BT, Nokia, Amazon.com, Inc., LG Electronics, Ericsson, NVIDIA, Sony, NTT Docomo and Intel all announced their withdrawal from the 2020 MWC in consideration of the safety of participants.

The press release mentioned that the host city respects and understands this decision. GSMA and host city Barcelona will continue to cooperate and support each other for the MWC 2021 and future events.