MWC 2023: world's most important tech fair begins in Barcelona

Barcelona's Mobile World Congress, one of the world's most important tech trade shows, began in the Catalan capital on Monday morning, the first in three years with no pandemic restrictions. 

Thousands upon thousands of mostly un-masked people have been flocking to Fira Barcelona for the 2023 edition of the event organizers believe will attract 80,000 visitors from around the globe, not quite as many as before Covid, until March 2. 

Around a quarter of attendees are from Asia, a share that has gone up once again after travel restrictions in China, in particular, affected their numbers during last year's edition. 

This year's theme is "velocity" and there will be over 2,000 exhibitors, including companies like Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Telefónica, Orange, Vodafone, or Ericsson spread throughout the conference center's eight halls. 

Huawei will be the biggest exhibitor this year, taking up almost all of hall one with a 10,000 sqm stand that is 50% bigger than it was for the 2022 edition. 

There will also be around 330 Catalan companies, from Sweanty to Bettair Cities, or Plastiks, of which just under a third are here with the government's Trade & Investment Agency, Acció. 

Despite the fair's name, over half of all attendees are not directly related to the mobile industry, but to other sectors including transport, finance, logistics, or videogames, as are around 40% of exhibitors. 

GSMA, the company behind the event, believes the Mobile World Congress will have a positive economic impact of over €350m for the city. 

Catalan president and King of Spain meet in inauguration events

On Monday morning, the Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, and the King of Spain, Felipe, met during the inauguration of the fair, with the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, also attending.

They had already met the night before during the traditional dinner, where Aragonès and Colau avoided officially receiving the monarch.

Later on Monday, Aragonès inaugurated the Catalonia stand and said that Mobile World Congress sets the country "at the digital economy's center."

He added that this is a key opportunity to boost the Catalan language in the digital world, with projects such as Aina, which aims to teach machines to understand and speak Catalan.

"We have the obligation to explain that we want for Catalan to be boosted and to be everywhere," said business minister, Roger Torrent.

Recently, Google announced that it would tackle complaints of fewer Catalan-language links shown on its results page.

Meeting with EU Commissioner

On Monday, Pere Aragonès also met with the EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton.

According to Catalan presidency sources, they talked about the ongoing economic challenges, the digitalization as a tool to create opportunities and the evolution of the European chip projects based on Catalonia.

They also caught up after the meeting they held in October, the first one between a Catalan president and a Commissioner since the independence push.

'Place to be to catch the trends'

Elsewhere, congresspeople told the Catalan News Agency that they were looking forward to the trade show. 

"It's the best conference of this type in Europe together with one in Amsterdam," said Ivan Runje, official for Hrvatski Telekom. "Definitely it's the place to be if you want to catch the trends."

"We really love Barcelona, I am a Barça fan, I adore Catalonia," he added. "Having this kind of audience is a good move, connecting them privately and businesswise, this destination is a honor for you to have it."

"It is not as busy as before but it's coming back," said Revathi Pillai, coming all the way from Massachussets.

Tang Kai, member of China's Oppo, explained he was "really excited" to be in Barcelona. Yet, "I found the traffic is very busy," he added.