And with that, Mobile World Congress Barcelona is over for another year - so how did it stack up compared to previous years? Our editorial team gives their impressions.
Manny: The GSMA’s outgoing director-general, Mats Granryd, recently shared on LinkedIn that this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona attracted 109,000 attendees from 205 countries. This marks a full return to pre-pandemic levels, matching the attendance figures of MWC 2019, which had similar aspirations for growth before the world was upended by COVID-19.
By all accounts, the GSMA’s flagship event is back on its feet. But is the mobile industry itself any better off?
In short, no. Financial performance remains sluggish for the majority of vendors and operators, many of whom have had to make significant staff cuts over the past year. The industry continues to search for the elusive “killer app” or transformative technology that will drive new revenue growth. One particular technology was omnipresent at MWC 2024, as expected - but was it truly there in substance?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dominated the show for several years now, and this year was no different. AI branding was everywhere, with companies touting “AI-powered” software or hardware “Designed with AI.” However, despite the heavy marketing, it became evident that AI is still not ready for widespread, transformative deployment.
There are certainly proof-of-concept projects, chatbot agents, and various use cases in development. But where is the scale? Where is the tangible, game-changing application of AI that delivers real, meaningful differences to enterprises and consumers?
It certainly isn’t coming from Apple, which recently announced further delays to its “Apple Intelligence” upgrade (also they don’t attend MWC). While that news may be frustrating - especially for those new to the iOS ecosystem - it is the likes of Amazon, Anthropic, Google and OpenAI that we look to for the development of large language models (LLMs). Yet, their actual commercial implementation in telecoms and beyond has yet to demonstrate transformative value.
To be fair, deploying AI properly takes significant groundwork, and this year’s MWC reflected that reality. Companies are still laying the foundation, ensuring they have the right data infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, and operational readiness to truly leverage AI’s potential. For now, the industry remains in a holding pattern - waiting for AI to go beyond the hype and start delivering at scale.
James: MWC25 came and went with a distinct feeling that it was more of the same, with a consensus emerging that it was something of an ‘in-between’ year that lacked a specific focus. Last year, AI was the buzzword on everyone’s lips; this year, the term was so ubiquitous it felt like it had lost all meaning. While it’s clear that there’s been no shortage of investment in AI, it’s less apparent whether operators are seeing a return on this – and the improved efficiencies being touted at the show are hardly unique to the telecoms sector.
Speaking of return on investment, I heard the term 6G being bandied about at MWC24 – this year, I don’t think I heard a single mention of it. 5G investment largely went unrewarded in the consumer market due to widespread unwillingness to pay for the premium, so the focus shifted to the enterprise sector. We recently investigated whether 5G had delivered on its much-touted promise here – and concluded that it still has a long way to go. It’s therefore unsurprising that operators aren’t keen to funnel money into a new technology generation, and are pursuing increased efficiencies via AI.
The satellite sector was one area with some interesting developments. There is increasing integration between the telco and satellite space, with Direct-to-Device and Low Earth Orbit making it – somewhat – more financially viable to connect remote and rural areas via satellite. However, deployments are few and far between, and as ever it’s expected to be a while before that changes.
Julian: Attendees at MWC2025 were left in no doubt that AI is set to impact every sector of the mobile communications industry. Whether they will have come away better equipped to weigh up business benefits of AI or have a clearer understanding of the challenges ahead is perhaps less certain. No doubt wary of underplaying the latter, equipment vendors at the show were generally careful to address the cost, complexity and disruptive potential of AI integration as part of their all-encompassing vision.
Even so, with transformative concepts such as Intent-driven Networking and Agentic AI being widely touted, the gulf between where the industry sits today and how it arrives at the AI-centric future was not always clear, particularly given the cost, complexity and pure disruptive potential of the exercise.
Perhaps MWC2025 did more to flesh out the scale of the challenge than to propose practical steps to its achievement. At the end of a week that appeared to offer no truly notable moments, it will once again be down to next year’s event to provide something more tangible, such as whether the all-encompassing AI vision remains achievable, or will give way to a more selective application of AI’s capabilities in areas where investments can be contained and returns are more immediately assured.
