Mobile World Congress show canceled because of coronavirus fears

Mobile World Congress, one of the largest and best-known smartphone conferences, has been canceled out of fears over the coronavirus. John Hoffman, chief executive of show organizer GSMA, said in an email that the outbreak has made it "impossible" to hold the event. Show organizers had begged the host city of Barcelona to pull the plug on the show later this month after at least a dozen tech companies dropped out of the show. AT&T Inc. , Intel Corp. , Nvidia Corp. , Facebook Inc. , Cisco Systems Inc. , Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson , LG Electronics Inc. [s:KR: 066570], Sony Corp. , and Amazon.com Inc. were among those who bowed out. "Due to the outbreak and continued concerns about novel coronavirus, Amazon will withdraw from exhibiting and participating in Mobile World Congress 2020," an Amazon spokesperson told MarketWatch on Monday.

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