Cisco, Facebook also pull out of MWC 2020

San Francisco, Feb 12 (IANS) Cisco and Facebook have become the latest big tech firms to drop out of the worlds largest mobile industry exhibition, the Mobile World Congress 2020 (MWC) citing concerns related to the coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

The social media giant and Cisco have joined the growing list of companies — including LG electronics, Ericsson, Nvidia, Sony, Amazon, now Intel, Vivo, and NTT Docomo deciding not to attend the mobile trade show.

“Out of an abundance of caution, Facebook employees would not be attending this year’s Mobile World Congress due to the evolving public health risks related to coronavirus. We will continue to collaborate with the GSMA and our partners and thank them for their efforts,” a company spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday.

Cisco took to Twitter to announce that it would not be at MWC.

“We have made the difficult decision to withdraw from participating in Mobile World Congress scheduled for Feb 24-27 in Barcelona due to concerns about the current outbreak of coronavirus,” the company tweeted.

MWC’s organiser GSMA has also issued sweeping safeguards over growing concerns of deadly coronavirus.

The GSMA has completely banned visitors from the China’s Hubei province, whose capital Wuhan is the epicentre of the epidemic that has so far claimed 1,113 lives.

According to GSMA CEO John Hoffman, all travellers from the province will not be permitted access to the event.

With the rapid spread of the China virus showing no signs of slowing down, the industry watchers have also warned that more companies may avoid the tech event.