The CES in Las Vegas begins to suffer a trickle of casualties similar to that experienced by the Mobile World Congress in early 2020. The rise in infections caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus is leading many of the large technology companies to cancel their presence in the largest electronics fair in the world, which is scheduled to take place between January 5 and 8 in Las Vegas. Thus, Amazon, Twitter or Meta (the company that includes Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, among others) have announced this Wednesday that they are canceling their attendance.
The coronavirus already motivated last year’s edition to run entirely online. For this year, its organizers, however, decided to try to return to the presence. The acceleration of infections, however, jeopardizes the plans of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which, for now, denies considering cancellation plans. Its president, Gary Shapiro, has assured in a statement that more than 100 government officials are expected to attend the conference and that all the necessary sanitary measures have been implemented and that for now, the registrations of attendees and companies have not been stopped. .
CES is nothing less than the largest and most influential consumer electronics fair in the world. Since 1967, inventions such as the Compact Disc (CD), video players, high definition television or 3D printers, the XBox console have been presented there.
“Due to the increase in Covid cases across the country during the past week, we decided to cancel our in-person attendance at CES next month,” explained Twitter in a press release. “We will continue to actively monitor the situation into the new year and find other opportunities to connect with our customers and partners.” Meta has assured, for its part, that they are exploring how to continue participating in a virtual way. “We will no longer be at CES due to the changing situation and the uncertainty generated by the variant,” explained Amazon, which intended to attend through its home automation camera subsidiary Ring. The manufacturer of microprocessors Nvidia has explained that it will limit itself to holding a virtual conference.
The gaze now rests on other conglomerates such as Google, Samsung, or Sony, pillars of past editions due to the number of products they present. All three, for now, maintain their plans to attend although they have confessed to Bloomberg who are following the health situation and that, just in case, they have alternative plans ready. T-Mobile, one of the sponsors of the event, already explained last Tuesday that it will “significantly limit” its presence in person. Its CEO, Mike Sievert, has resigned from delivering a keynote address at the event. Neither in person nor online.
Some smaller tech companies, such as smartphone maker OnePlus or virtual reality headset developer HTC Vive, announced this week that they plan to attend the show. Apple’s last involvement came two years ago. So, he barely participated in a privacy debate. This year I did not plan to attend the event.
For now, things are looking better for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which will take place between February 28 and March 3, 2022. In the congress confirmed list there are already Samsung, Google, Huawei, Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Telefónica, among others.
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