The number of exhibitors attending Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year is plummeting with health and safety concerns around coronavirus being cited as the reason, and Royole is the most recent company to follow suit.
It all kicked off with LG and ZTE pulling out, swiftly followed by Ericsson, and then Sony, Amazon, and Nvidia. Now Royole has joined their ranks, but it’s not letting that put a dampener on its upcoming smartphone reveal.
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/02/coronavirus-mwc-mobile-world-congress/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/barcelona-mwc-410×231.jpg” title=”Every Company Ditching Mobile World Congress Because Of Coronavirus [Updated]” excerpt=”In two weeks Mobile World Congress (MWC) will be kicking off in Barcelona. Despite being the world’s largest mobile conference, it is looking to be quieter this year with a number of major companies pulling out due to coronavirus concerns.”]
Royole made the world’s fist commercially available foldable phone with the FlexPai that failed to make an impact because it was most likely rushed to market.
The company was planning on showcasing its follow up, the FlexPai 2, at MWC next week, but will instead be announcing it before the event instead – if it’s still going ahead. The statement issued by Royole echoes those we’ve seen so far, expressing its concern for the safety of its employees and customers. Dr. Bill Liu, Founder and CEO Royole Corporation, says:
“With the safety and wellbeing of our employees, partners and customers being our first priority, we have made the difficult decision to withdraw our attendance from MWC this year. It is a shame we are unable to participate in MWC 2020 and use this platform to showcase a new ground-breaking foldable phone, the FlexPai 2, instead we will announce it to the world soon prior to MWC.”
You can keep up with the avalanche of tech giants that are scrabbling to distance themselves from the event right here.
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.