On February 12, the week before most media started traveling to Barcelona, GSMA cancelled MWC 2020 due to concerns about the spread of the new coronavirus.

This news caused great concern, because MWC, as an important global communications exhibition, is even more important than CES at the beginning of the year.

So, with the official cancellation of the show, what about the upcoming mobile phones? Who is the biggest victim? Will there be MWC 2021?

The real reason to cancel MWC 2020

The GSMA statement states that as concerns about the spread of COVID-19 virus from one region to another increase, the show will be "impossible" to continue, especially given the influence of companies from China on the show's history Great.

Initially, GSMA set a guide for the new coronavirus epidemic and adopted recognized precautions, namely 14 days of quarantine for participants from China, but the exhibition was eventually cancelled.

Although the new coronavirus is indeed the focus of many people's attention and the extent of its spread is not fully understood, the real reason for the cancellation of the show is the rapid decline in the number of exhibitors.

Dozens of the largest companies scheduled to participate in the show have announced their exits in the past week. Even companies that have not announced their exits have significantly reduced their activities and cancelled press conferences. The media is starting to follow suit.

Due to the withdrawal of the main sponsors of the exhibition and the decrease in the number of exhibitors, GSMA could only cancel the show in the end.

If it continues in this situation, only half or less of the planned exhibitors may be present, which is also a disaster for this exhibition.

What about upcoming phones?

Although large companies like Samsung release products at their own pace, it will have a greater impact on small or large companies with less influential products, because exhibitions like MWC attract a large number of journalists and potential partners participate.

According to the plan, MWC 2020 is expected to launch new products from Motorola, HMD Global (Nokia), Sony, LG, TCL, Xiaomi, Honor, Huawei, Lenovo, OPPO, ZTE and other brands.

After the show's cancellation, every company will inevitably find a new way to launch these products. However, there are many companies that are not large enough to guarantee a separate event, which is why they prefer to participate in MWC and it is likely to affect subsequent marketing plans.

This is not ideal, but some of these releases have gone so far that the cost of changing anything else is high. In some cases, as they move resources into the new strategy, the release is actually delayed.

In either case, we will have to wait longer before we can see the products that we should have seen at the show.

Who is most affected?

Although we want to focus on the launch of consumer-oriented smartphones, tablets and PCs, MWC is a major exhibition for communications networks, telecom operators and chips.

Whether it's keynotes, group discussions, meetings, and gatherings between business partners, most of what happens during MWC is related to network and carrier business.

It can be said that the cancellation of MWC 2020 will do more harm to businesses and enterprises in the mobile communications industry than to consumers.

They do have meetings and transactions elsewhere, but what makes MWC attractive is that it's a great place to do all the work at once.

As an industry trade agency, GSMA represents more than 1,200 companies in the entire mobile ecosystem. MWC is where thousands of people come together to seek partnerships, transactions, and product launch opportunities.

It was reported that MWC had an economic impact of approximately 492 million euros and created 14,100 part-time jobs during the show.

What happens in Barcelona?

With so many large companies evacuating from MWC, the city will be bustling from previous years next week.

As the show has been officially cancelled, the last few companies still planning to hold press conferences have also given up, which means that there are few representative companies left.

Even though most exhibitors booked air tickets and hotels a few months ago, it is not worth going to Barcelona now. It's also a bit of a chicken and egg problem: if there aren't many companies going to participate, journalists won't attend. So almost everyone quit.

You may see some people still flying to Spain, but there will be no official press conference of any kind.

Is there MWC 2021?

Regarding the cancellation of MWC 2020, many people have guessed and concluded. Some people say that the loss of money, coupled with the loss of income opportunities brought by the exhibition.

According to local Spanish media reports, Barcelona, the host of MWC, lost USD 536 million directly due to the cancellation of the exhibition. This loss does not include the costs of various companies.

Perhaps more importantly, losing the goodwill of the city of Barcelona may even cause GSMA to completely change the direction of MWC.

GSMA CEO John Hoffman made it clear in his statement that MWC 2021 will still be held:

The GSMA and the Host City Parties will continue to be working in unison and supporting each other for MWC Barcelona 2021 and future editions.

In fact, GSMA will take this opportunity to take new safeguards in case this happens again. So far, the GSMA and the city of Barcelona have been generally satisfied with the success of MWC, and such cancellations (out of GSMA's control) are unlikely to result in disruption of this partnership.

There is no doubt that this is a black spot in the history of the exhibition, but everyone knows that this situation is extenuating, not the fault of GSMA. As of last year, MWC is still as successful as ever. I fully expect MWC to return to Barcelona in 2021.