BARCELONA (Reuters) – Japanese wireless carrier NTT Docomo (9437.T) and Sony Corp (6758.T) pulled out of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on Monday because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Amazon (AMZN.O), South Korea’s LG Electronics (066570.KS), Swedish equipment maker Ericsson (ERICb.ST) and U.S. chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O) have already withdrawn from MWC, which had more than 100,000 visitors and upwards of 2,400 exhibitors in 2019.
MWC, due to take place on Feb 24-27, is the telecom industry’s biggest annual gathering, with companies spending millions on stands and hospitality to fill their order books.
Barcelona’s economy got a boost of around 470 million euros ($515 million) last year from the event, its organiser the GSMA estimated. The GSMA had no immediate comment.
Gremi d’Hotels de Barcelona, the city’s main hotels association, said coronavirus concerns had resulted in cancellations but it was too early to quantify the impact on overall bookings.
And the region’s digital policy councillor, Jordi Puignero, told local radio station RAC1 the Catalan regional government was “taking measures so that everything proceeds as normal”.
“There is no reason to not attend,” he added.
Sources close to exhibitors said that if participants cancel, they would have to bear