Mobile World Congress breaks new ground

More than 55 000 visitors attended the world’s premier mobile event, the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona this week to do business and debate the future of the mobile phone industry, making this year’s event the largest yet. The event ended yesterday, but Gadget’s coverage will continue in the coming weeks.

Barcelona played host, from 11 to 14 February, to the world’s largest gathering ever of mobile technology industry players ‚ no less than 55 000 participants.

And the three-day conference that went hand in hand with the Mobile World Congress, which featured more than 230 chief executives and other high-level speakers from across the world, attracted more than 8 000 delegates.

Standing room only: delegates at the Mobile World Congress (Pic: Gadget)

Notable by their absence were the major American networks, and two of the major new American players in the mobile space, Apple and Google ‚ although the latter had representatives hosting private meetings at the event. More about that later in Gadget.

‚The record attendance figures at this year’s Congress reflect both the extraordinary and compelling conference programme, which covered a broad range of topics from Long-Term Evolution to made-for-mobile short films to the environment, and the high quality of the exhibition,‚ said John Hoffman, CEO of the GSMA’s conference division. ‚We are also delighted by the seniority of the people that have travelled from all over the world to Barcelona for the Congress – more than 43% of conference attendees hold C-level positions within their organisations.‚ Observing, analysing and reporting on the Congress were 2,700 international print, Web and broadcast media ‚ including Gadget ‚ and the event made headlines across the globe.

The Congress also hosted 1,300 exhibitors across 1,500 stands with approximately 29,000 square metres of exhibition space and 30,000 of square metres of hospitality space, reflecting the fact that people come to the show to network and do business. Mobile entertainment and content formed a major theme throughout the show with an entire hall dedicated to multimedia content for mobile devices. In addition, the Mobile Backstage event at the National Palace explored the creation of compelling and high-quality content for mobile devices. “Once again, Barcelona has successfully accommodated a further increase in the size of the Congress,”” added Mr. Hoffman. “”We would like to thank the city, Catalonia, Fira and all our Barcelona partners for being such warm and efficient hosts. We would also like to thank our sponsors, particularly LG and Telefonica, for their support.”” The Mobile World Congress’s sister event, the Mobile Asia Congress, which takes place in the Macau from November 18 to November 20, will also stage a world-class conference programme and exhibition, attracting mobile industry leaders from across the globe.

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