After the cancelation of major tech conferences around the world, including Mobile World Congress and SXSW, CES Asia organizers said Monday the trade show scheduled for mid-June in Shanghai would be postponed. It comes on the very same day that the cancelation of E3, the world's biggest gaming convention, became all but official.
Given the evolving health concerns from the coronavirus (COVID-19), we have decided to postpone CES Asia 2020. https://t.co/u9cV3uEzrt
— CES Asia (@CESAsia) March 9, 2020
"Our decision reflects the concerns of our stakeholders including exhibitors, buyers, media and speakers. Given the evolving global concerns about and impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19), we feel this is the best decision for everyone involved, " the Consumer Technology Association said in a statement.
CES Asia's 2020 gathering was scheduled to take place from June 10 to 12. Though the show isn't as large as its Las Vegas-based sibling, last year it attracted more than 42,000 attendees and more than 520 exhibiting companies, including Samsung, Huawei and Google, according to organizers.
"We made this decision at this time as we know companies and attendees invest considerable time and effort in planning for trade shows like CES Asia," organizers said.
CES Asia joins a growing list of technology conferences that have been forced to cancel their annual events or pare them down over fears of the spreading novel coronavirus, which has infected nearly 1,000 people in the US and claimed more than 4,200 lives worldwide.
Mobile World Congress, typically held in Barcelona in late February, was the first major tech conference to be axed over fears of the novel coronavirus. More recently, SXSW was canceled while Facebook and Google also opted not to hold their annual conferences, F8 and Google I/O. E3, scheduled to run June 9-11, has been canned, though the Entertainment Software Association group that hosts the event has yet to make the cancellation official.
With CES Asia now out, the next show expected to fall is Computex. Hosted each year in Taipei, Taiwan, and platform for big announcements for companies like Asus, AMD and Nvidia, the Taipei Computer Association has yet to cancel the event. It's scheduled to take place June 2-6.