Coronavirus outbreak: Xiaomi India cancels all on-ground launch events

The Redmi Note 9 online-only launch event will be live-streamed on the company's social media handles and mi.com.

Xiaomi announced today that it would not hold any product launch event on-ground throughout March in India, owing to the rising concerns about the novel coronavirus outbreak. The announcement comes ahead of the Redmi Note 9 launch event which was due to be held on March 12.

Xiaomi India head and global VP Manu Kumar Jain took to Twitter to make the announcement. In a letter shared on Twitter, Manu Kumar said that the company will hold an online-only event for the launch of the next Redmi Note in India. The launch will be live-streamed on the company's social media handles and mi.com.

"There is a global outbreak of coronavirus COVID-19 that has affected people severely. Given this unprecedented situation, we have an important update for you. We won't be holding any on-ground product launch events throughout March in India. While we have been planning this launch for months, we believe this step is crucial," the letter reads.

"Reports of community spread are coming in from various parts of the world. In certain media reports, there are also instances of asymptomatic carriers, meaning a person could be a carrier of the virus without exhibiting any symptoms of the flu. We are operating out of abundant caution and our dedication to keeping all of you healthy," it further reads.

📢#Note the update: Due to recent reports of COVID-19 #CoronaOutbreak in certain parts of the country, we've decided to not host product launch events on-ground in March.This is keeping in mind safety of fans, media friends, employees & partners. I urge you all to stay safe. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/SOdDZtSkmo

— Manu Kumar Jain (@manukumarjain) March 3, 2020

Notably, a number of international conferences including Google Cloud Next '20, Facebook's F8, Game Developers Conference 2020, Adobe Summit, Geneva Auto Show, Microsoft's MVP Summit have been either canceled or postponed or turned into an online-only event, due to the coronavirus outbreak.