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CES 2022 to Proceed Despite Current Exodus of Listed Exhibitors

The largest technology show in the world, CES 2022 is facing a lot of stress tests as some of its key exhibitors are bailing out from the in-person show. As reported by The Verge,  Lenovo Group Limited (HKG: 0992) is the latest to announce it will not be joining the show in Las Vegas, a move the company said is needed to protect its staff and the general community considering the surging cases of Omicron.

“After closely monitoring the current trends surrounding COVID, it is in the best interest of the health and safety of our employees, customers, partners, and our communities to suspend all on-site activity in Las Vegas,” Lenovo revealed via its official Twitter handle, adding that, “While this is a change in plans, we are excited for you all to see our latest technology launching as scheduled on January 4th and January 5th.”

Before Lenovo, top participants in the exhibition particularly T-Mobile Us Inc (NASDAQ: TMUS), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: FB) had also pulled out from attending the event physically. Drawing on the fact that the event was held virtually last year, some of the participants who pulled out will notably be attending online.

Per The Verge report, T-Mobile’s withdrawal from the event had more impact than most of the others as outlets like AT&T Inc (NYSE: T), Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR), Pinterest Inc (NYSE: PINS), and iHeartRadio amongst others. Despite pulling out, T-Mobile said it “will continue to serve as a CES sponsor and title sponsor of the DRL Championship Race but the vast majority of our team will not be traveling to Las Vegas.”

CES to Continue Despite Exhibitors Exits

CES organizers, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), have decided to proceed with the show despite having received about 42 cancellations from exhibitors. The organization said this cancellation represents just about 7% of all proposed attendance it is expecting for next year’s event, and that it has received as many as 60 new applications from new tech startups wishing to attend.

In a statement, the CTA said;

“CES 2022 will go forward as important innovation for world health and safety, mobility and solving problems will be exhibited. Furthermore, thousands of smaller and medium sized companies rely on CES for their business. We have increased our official count to over 2200 exhibitors and as announced yesterday many of our top elected officials from both political parties will be at CES.”

For the show, the organization said the proper health safety measures will be put in place, and attendees need to be vaccinated, use face masks and maintain social distancing measures. The CTA noted that while some big players have chosen to pull out from the show, the event is still highly important for smaller tech startups.

Besides T-Mobile, other big participants with prominent roles at the show include LG Electronics Inc (KRX: 066570), and Sony Group Corp (NYSE: SONY) amongst others.

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CES 2022 to Proceed Despite Current Exodus of Listed Exhibitors