Nokia and HMD Global drop out of MWC 2020

The day started with a report that MWC 2020 is on the brink of being cancelled due to too much withdrawals of major companies, and today two more joined the wave.

Nokia and HMD Global sent out separate press releases from their neighboring offices in Espoo, Finland, confirming the outbreak of the coronavirus Covid-19 and the concern for the health of their employees is the major reason to pull out of the event in Barcelona.

HMD Global said that the conference has always been a key stage for launching new products, however, the safety of employees, customers and stakeholders is the company’s highest priority. There will be a new timeline for any upcoming Nokia smartphones, but that will be revealed once finalized.

The words in Nokia’s press release say pretty much the same - it evaluated the situation with GSMA, stakeholders and external experts and authorities, but eventually decided to cancel participation. Instead of being part of MWC 2020, Nokia said it prefers to “go directly to customers with a series of Nokia Live events”, which sounds like an online demo of 5G technology.

HMD Global and Nokia join a plethora of other telecommunications giants, including Sony, vivo, TCL, Ulefone, a bunch of carriers and many more.

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