What you need to know
- Vivo has pulled out of MWC, citing coronavirus worries.
- The brand was slated to introduce its latest bezel-less phone at the conference, and it says it will introduce the device at a later date.
- LG and Sony have already pulled out of the show, and with Vivo following suit this year's event will be severely diminished.
Following LG and Sony, Vivo has announced that it is no longer attending Mobile World Congress. Like everyone else that has pulled out of the show thus far, Vivo cited the coronavirus as the reason for not attending this year's event.
Vivo was planning to showcase its latest bezel-less phone at the conference, but it says it will introduce the device at a later date.
Here's the full statement Vivo provided to Android Central:
Vivo has been closely monitoring the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (NCP) outbreak and continuously evaluating planned activities. The health and safety of our employees and the public are our top priority. Based on the present situation, we have decided to withdraw from our debut at MWC 2020 and other related events later this month in Barcelona, Spain.We will introduce the APEX 2020 concept phone which we had originally planned to showcase at MWC soon. We will share more updates in due course.We apologize for any inconvenience caused and would like to thank our partners, media friends and consumers for their understanding.
It is possible we'll hear about other brands pulling out over the course of the week. With Vivo also out of MWC, we're left with Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Realme in terms of device launches. Xiaomi has reiterated that it will attend the event, and Realme is also set to unveil a TV and its latest phone, the X50 5G, later this month.
Harish Jonnalagadda is a Senior Editor overseeing Asia at Android Central. He leads the site's coverage of Chinese phone brands, contributing to reviews, features, and buying guides. He also writes about storage servers, audio products, and the semiconductor industry. Contact him on Twitter at @chunkynerd.
