The big Mobile World Congress (MWC) commerce honest for telecoms kicks off for its twentieth annual version in Barcelona on Monday, with companies racing to pump AI into their methods at the same time as debate rages over the expertise’s regulation.
Here’s what to look out for within the coming days:
Who’s who
Around 109,000 enterprise attendees will stroll the halls of the conference centre, based on the GSMA cellular business affiliation, which has organized the MWC yearly since 2006 within the Catalan capital.
On the political facet, round 60 authorities ministers from all over the world are anticipated on the flooring, the place greater than 2,900 corporations’ stands can be exhibiting off the newest smartphones and related companies.
Exhibitors embrace telecoms and smartphone giants like Samsung, Huawei, Nokia, Orange, Xiaomi or Honor and massive tech heavyweights together with Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon.
One notable abstainer is Apple, which has by no means participated — preferring to indicate off new merchandise at its personal worldwide occasions, with the following one going down on Wednesday.
Highly anticipated audio system embrace Gwynne Shotwell, president of Elon Musk’s rocket firm SpaceX.
Among the devices to be careful for, Chinese group Honor will showcase the primary “robot phone” powered by AI — though loads of different merchandise can be on show for the primary time.
Race for sovereignty
“Sovereign AI will be a big discussion item” at this yr’s MWC, GSMA analysts informed journalists.
Telecoms have a key position to play within the blossoming of generative synthetic intelligence, which requires huge portions of information to flow into swiftly, reliably and securely over operators’ networks.
Satellite connectivity for smartphones and different gadgets will even be a key matter within the shadow of debate over how Europe can stand aside from the U.S. within the digital world.
This yr, telecom corporations are nonetheless working to increase 5G cellular protection whereas “laying foundations that won’t be ripped out when 6G arrives” with the following era of connectivity, business knowledgeable Paolo Pescatore mentioned. “It’s all about the network.”
‘Remarkable resilience’ for smartphones
Global smartphone gross sales are selecting up steam once more, powered by a slew of recent fashions providing revolutionary new options — lots of them from Chinese producers.
More than 1.2 billion gadgets have been bought in 2025, a 1.9 % year-on-year enhance, based on specialist knowledge agency IDC.
“Despite a challenging year marked with tariffs volatility, supply chain disruption and persistent macroeconomic headwinds across several markets, the global smartphone market demonstrated remarkable resilience,” IDC analysis director Nabila Popal mentioned.
Beyond the business tensions which have buffeted world commerce, machine producers are additionally dealing with large will increase within the value of reminiscence chips, pushed by heavy demand from corporations constructing computing infrastructure to develop and energy AI fashions.
In market share, Apple accounted for 19.7 % of worldwide smartphone gross sales in 2025, a nostril forward of Samsung at 19.1 %.
China’s high vendor Xiaomi was in third place at 13.1 %.
© 2026 AFP