MWC 2010 Closes Its Gates, GSMA Reports

At the end of the Mobile World Congress 2010, held in Barcelona, Spain, GSM Association reported that over 49,000 visitors from 200 countries had attended the event, considered the most important in the mobile-communication industry. The MWC has managed to bring together over 2,800 CEOs and executives from some of the largest mobile operators, equipment providers, software developers, Internet companies and also government representatives. Approximately 54 percent of the participants held C-level positions.

“It’s a hugely exciting time to be in the mobile communications industry and the extremely strong attendance at the 2010 Mobile World Congress underscores that,” John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Limited, said. “The innovation that is the hallmark of our industry was on display front and centre this week, from the insightful presentations in our conference programme to the demonstrations of new devices, technologies and services in the exhibition halls. Once again, Mobile World Congress stands out as the must-attend event for the global communications industry.”

Representatives of companies including Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, BBC, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Vodafone, Samsung and others debated on issues and situations that were directly influencing the mobile industry on a global level. During the exhibition, Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt presented a World Live keynote, which registered over 35,000 views via the Mobile World Live portal. The replay of this session, as well as interviews with some of the executives present at the MWC can be found here.

The inaugural App Planet, an event created to bring together the critical elements of the mobile-application industry, was visited by over 20,000 people during the four-day event in Barcelona. Several top companies like Motorola, Google, Sony Ericsson, Research In Motion, Vodafone and WIPJam also held application developer conferences (ADC) for more than 6,000 developers present this year at the Congress. The MWC 2010 featured 1,300 exhibiting companies, welcomed 2,400 media representatives and occupied more than 56,000 square meters in total.