MWC Barcelona 2021: Key Announcements and Highlights
By: Eze Wholesale
Tags: MWC, Mobile, Consumer Electronics, Smartphones, Mwc21

MWC Barcelona, or the Mobile World Congress, is the grandest annual event in the mobile communications industry. Organized by GSMA, the event has been held yearly since 1987, bringing together various players in the industry from around the world.

Last year’s was canceled owing to the Covid pandemic. But this year — after being put off from February (the month it holds usually) — MWC21 happened.

It started on June 28 and ran through July 1, having both in-person and virtual participants, in Catalonia, Spain.

Key announcements

Although few, there were striking revelations — mainly from industry stalwarts like Lenovo, Samsung, and the American mobile chipmaker, Qualcomm.

Lenovo announced a new tablet device, the Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 (a tablet with a kickstand), and a second-gen Smart Clock with a wireless charging dock.

Samsung, among other things, gave insights into its One UI Watch, a new platform that powers the coming Galaxy Watch, and which debuts the Wear OS the company co-created with Google.

Qualcomm announced its newest first-rate processor, the Snapdragon 888+ 5G, with a clock speed of 2.995GHz, up from the 2.84GHz on the Snapdragon 888.

A 4YFN (4 Years from Now) session, for startups, during GSMA’s Mobile World Congress 2021 #MWC21 | Photo by JJxFile via Wikimedia Commons

The 4YFN (4 Years From Now) event

Also, core at MWC21 was GSMA’s annual event for startups and innovators, 4YFN. The yearly event currently features programs (the Connectivity Hub, Digital Hub, Fintech Hub, Impact, and Investors programs), conferences, summits, and exhibitions— all geared towards supporting “startups, investors and companies to connect and launch new business ventures together.”

This year, 4YFN was merged with MWC Barcelona and, alongside other perks, availed some 400 international startups the chance to capture the interest of top funds, venture capitalists, and corporate venture capitalists.

Attendees at MWC21

GSMA has revealed that this year’s MWC had

over 20,000 people who attended in-person

around 100,000 unique virtual and daily viewers on MWC21 and partner platforms

representation from around 165 countries and territories, 117 of those in-person

over 1000 exhibitors, sponsors, and partners

millions who tuned into MWC21 content through global syndication via 1000+ national and international broadcasters

over 50% of attendees being Directors

1,500 CEOs and C-Suite executives.

Commenting on the event’s success, GSMA’s director-general, Mats Granryd, expressed delight:

“I am proud of the team for delivering a high-quality event in an extraordinarily complex environment. The pandemic has indelibly changed how we gather. We had to develop new health and safety protocols and a hybrid platform but, we did it! It was only possible because of a community of support for which I am very grateful.”

GSMA’s Mobile World Congress 2021 #MWC21 | Photo by JJxFile via Wikimedia Commons

Next: MWC22

One source quoting Mats Granryd has it that next year’s MWC will return to the usual February slot.

“We do want to be going back to the February Barcelona rhythm once 2021 is done,” said Mats. “A lot of product launches are happening towards the beginning of the year, so we’d like to time that into our event.”

And officially, as shared in a press release yesterday, GSMA has scheduled 2022’s MWC to run from February 28 through March 3.