The Mobile World Congress plans to return normality to Barcelona

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) go back to Barcelona with the intention of recovering normality or being the beginning of the post-pandemic stage. After the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic forced the 2020 edition to be canceled and the 2021 edition to be limited, the technology fair hopes to bring together up to 60,000 visitors from all over the world in the Catalan capital and at the Fira de Barcelona venue in the Catalan capital and l’Hospitalet de Llobregat from February 28 to March 3 next, around double that of last year. Again on the usual dates, after the cancellation of 2020 and the delay to July of last year’s edition.

The organizers assure that they have already reserved spaces for the 2023 edition, although the objective is to focus on the current edition, according to the CEO of the GSMA, John Hoffmann. It is estimated that this edition will be the beginning of the post-pandemic phase and which will provide Barcelona with some 240 million euros and some 6,000 part-time jobs. Last year’s Mobile was held in July, after having to be delayed due to the evolution of the pandemic and had a great weight of virtual participation. In the 2022 edition, face-to-face attendance gains importance, according to GSMA representatives.

The fifteenth edition of the congress, one of the most important in the world, will focus on the connection 5Gthe development of what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, entrepreneurship and virtual reality. As usual, its headquarters will be the Fira de Barcelona-Gran Via venue between Barcelona and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

Last year, the impact of the health crisis forced in-person losses of giants in the sector. This year will be different and they only announced that they will not attend, Sony, which has not been since 2019 and Lenovo. The organizer of the event, GSMA, explained that the congress will bring together 1,000 speakers and that 95% of them will participate in person. Thus, large technology companies from 150 countries such as Google, Meta, Verizon, Microsoft, IBM, Telefónica, Nokia, ZTE, HP, Huawei or Amazon Web Services will also attend.

Evolution of visitors

The presentation ceremony held at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue was attended by the mayor of L’Hospitalet, Núria Marín, the first deputy mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, and the Secretary of Digital Policies of the Generalitat, David Ferrer; the president of Fira de Barcelona, ​​Pau Relat; the General Director of Innovation, Lluís Juncà; the general director of Fira de Barcelona, ​​Constantí Serrallonga; the General Director of Barcelona Tourism, Marian Muro, and the General Director of the Hotel Guild, Manel Casals.

Some 109,000 visitors attended the 2019 Mobile which, after the 2020 break, became around a third in 2021 and this 2022 will increase the number of participants, although the existing restrictions in China and Japan will still be noted, delegations that they used to be very numerous before the pandemic. Both the general director of the GSMA, Mats Granryd, and Hoffman have recalled that the Mobile, the most important fair of those held at Fira de Barcelona, ​​has had an economic impact for the Catalan capital of some 5,300 million euros since 2005 and has generated some 141,000 part-time jobs.

One of the novelties this year will be the deployment together with the City Council of ‘Beat Barcelona’, a space to connect companies in the Catalan capital and open them to agreements with international companies for projects that have an impact on the city, Hoffman explained.

To questions from journalists about the continuity of the show beyond 2024, as established in the contract after adding one more year after the cancellation of 2020, the GSMA representatives have stated that they are focused on holding the show this anus. The intention is to resume the negotiations to prolong the celebration of the Mobile in Barcelona in the coming weeks and avoid entering that field as much as possible in an electoral period such as 2023, according to sources familiar with these conversations.

The president of Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete, will debut in this edition’s Mobile as president of GSMA, a position for which he was recently elected. Hoffman and Granryd have highlighted that the entire ecosystem of the sector will be present in Barcelona, ​​in addition there will be stands representing 37 countries and 1,500 exhibitors and representatives from 150 countries.

Related news

At the same time, as in previous editions, first-level conferences will be held with participation not focused on the number of those who attend, but on the fact that “those who have to be will be there”, they have underlined. Among the speakers, the specialist in virtual reality and the metaverse, Cathy Hackl, responsible for the metaverse of the Future Intelligent Group; the president of Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete; the president of China Mobile, Yang Jie; the CEO of Amazon Web Services, Adam Selipsky, that of Vodafone, Nick Reed, or the president of Barça, Joan Laporta, among others.

At the same time as the MWC, the show of the ‘start-ups’ Four Years from Now (4YFN), which will celebrate its eighth edition and from which some companies have already emerged that have been consolidating in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. One of the essential points of the sample is to relate entrepreneurs with potential investors.