Everything, except Mobile. With the permission of IFA Berlin, the largest European technological event continues to avoid Covid-19 and avoid the controversy surrounding the war in Ukraine. Many attendees quickly added that “More people have been seen than last year” and “but it has not to do with the previous pandemic.”
The organizer of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the GSMA still has days to make a complete inventory. Its forecasts for the start indicated that there would be between 40,000-60,000 participants. Participants in the Fira de Barcelona say that the carpeted corridors are filled with people who “hear a lot more Spanish this year than other editions”.
The brands’ exhibitors occupy more space on the sides of these corridors than they did in previous years. The pavilion is almost dominated by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms company. It is the same with South Korean Samsung, number 3. Mobile World Congress organizers assure that the occupied surface will reach between 80-85% in the seventeenth edition. However, there is a trick.
The Fira de Barcelona, Montjuic hosted the annual parallel event 4YFN (Four Years From Now) which was dedicated to entrepreneurs and startups. It is now grouped in one pavilion of Fira de Gran Via where all the major brands are.
Although the Covid-19 event ended the MWC’s existence in 2020, it was not noticed in the increasing frequency of brand events leaving big mobile launch announcements.
The M for Mobile is increasingly becoming a P for PC World Capital. The seventeenth edition of the M for Mobile is filled with tablets and laptops from the major brands.
Huawei’s MatePad Paper 1 has been shown, a device that is halfway between an electronic book and a tablet. It also comes with a MateBook X Pro, a new member to its laptop family.
Samsung brought two laptops with it to Barcelona. The Book2 Pro is for those who telework at home and the Pro 360 is for professionals.
There is still room for nostalgia for smartphone ads. Poco’s X4 Pro 5G has been presented by Poco, a cost-effective solution for the fifth generation of technology. Realme presented the GT2 Pro.
Although they may not have the most visually striking products, they are the ones who most benefit from 5G’s ultra-connectivity and “break the cod”, as they call it.
Telefonica, Vodafone, and Orange have large exhibitors. The queen is 5G. The French operator can remote control a boat in Valencia using its robots, as well as waiters in Spanish telecos.
In the middle of a battle with the American technological giants. Jose Maria Alvarez -Pallete, Telefonica’s president, asked for “justice” and “not privileges” at the Mobile World Congress. This was a call that was seconded by Vodafone CEO, who suggested that these companies had launched themselves into the metaverse in an attempt to catch the train its competitors missed.
Telefonica today opened a global call to metaverse startups through Wayra. Open2metaverse, a global search campaign to support best-of breed technology companies using’metaverse applications’ to grow and reach global scale quicker, is now open.