Mobile World Congress Barcelona was held from February 27 to March 2, 2023, where over 85,000 visitors from 202 countries gathered to discuss the latest issues and trends in the global communications industry. The show has almost returned to pre-COVID-19 participation levels as 2019 hosted 109,500 attendees and almost all major sponsors have returned to the event. The 2023 edition of the show had five official themes, which were 5G acceleration, reality+, OpenNet, FinTech, and Digital Everything. The show in its entirety, however, had many exhibitors spanning the entire ICT ecosystem, and how companies can successfully tackle Digital Transformation continues to be a more prominent trend every year.
Overall, the core themes which emerged from MWC Barcelona 2023 and their implications include the following:
MWC Barcelona 2023 Trend 1 : Sustainability
One of the key trends which was very prominent at the show was an increasing movement for telcos, vendors, and other partners to take more action towards embracing sustainability in their business operations. According to the GSMA, only 9% of energy utilized in the telecom sector is renewable; hence, there is a growing movement to change this. For example, vendors such as Huawei and Ericsson unveiled a series of new radios and core network infrastructure which can significantly reduce network power consumption by leveraging cloud-native architecture. Device vendors such as Samsung released new smartphone models which are heavily comprised of recycled glass and plastic, and the vendor has set the goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2030.