Due to concerns surrounding the spread of the 2019 novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), several companies have pulled out of or are scaling back their attendance of MWC 2020. So far, that list includes ZTE, LG, Ericsson, and NVIDIA. Another company we're closely watching is Xiaomi, the value Chinese brand that is expected to unveil the global pricing and availability of its upcoming Mi 10 smartphone series. While the company hasn't canceled or postponed its global launch plans just yet, the current situation has forced the company to make adjustments to its domestic launch plans. On Chinese social media website Weibo, Xiaomi confirmed that the company will move forward with the Chinese launch of the Mi 10 series, but that the event will only be held online.

This will be the first time Xiaomi is launching a flagship phone without gathering members of the media to attend a physical press conference. The online-only event will take place on February 13th, two days after Samsung launches the Galaxy S20 series in San Francisco. Xiaomi thus won't be able to claim they're the first to launch a product on Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 865 platform, though neither can Samsung if you count ZTE's quiet launch of the Axon 10s Pro. In any case, the launch of the Mi 10 series will be interesting to observe because of Xiaomi's history of undercutting its competitors. Few details have been confirmed about Xiaomi's new flagships besides the fact that both devices will feature the Snapdragon 865 and LPDDR5 RAM sourced from Micron and Samsung. In addition, we expect both devices to feature 108MP primary rear cameras, and we also believe the higher-end Pro model will support 66W fast wired charging. We'll be watching the event on February 13th to provide all the details on Xiaomi's new Mi flagships, but we'll also (hopefully) be on the show floor at MWC to bring you coverage of Xiaomi's press event.