Just What Is Mobile World Congress, Anyway?
In the United States, the tech events that typically get the most attention are CES, Samsung Unpacked, Google I/O, and pretty much any time Apple puts on a show. But there is also a large gathering every year in Barcelona that doesn’t attract as much attention on this side of the Atlantic, although it attracts more than 100,000 people over four days. It’s Mobile World Congress, and it starts this week.
MWC is all about the telecommunications industry, which can seem dry if you don’t work for a telecommunications company. But now that most people carry a smartphone every day, we are all affected in one way or another by what happens at the event.
CNET has a full team of writers and editors in Barcelona researching the products and technologies we’ll be talking about over the next year and beyond. Keep up to date with what they find by staying tuned to our MWC 2026 live blog.
Why should you care about MWC?
Chances are you’re reading this on a smartphone, using technologies that debuted at MWC. The features showcased in Barcelona over the past two decades are like the cerulean colors of the fashion world, introduced with fanfare and then widely distributed in phones like the one you’re wearing. (This year marks 20 years of MWC in Barcelona, but the show existed in other forms in the early 1990s.)
CNET’s Tara Brown and Abrar Al-Heeti pose in front of a sign for MWC in Barcelona in 2025. They are both returning for MWC 2026.
As smartphones have become almost ubiquitous in modern life, the MWC has become the showcase and first public testing ground for the technologies that use them. For example, major telcos have spent billions of dollars upgrading their networks to support 5G, and it started with early concept demonstrations in 2015 that showed faster, more responsive wireless communication. It wasn’t until 2019 and 2020 that 5G-equipped consumer phones hit the market.
This year, we expect to hear more about 6G (because this industry always needs more G), which has been in the works since at least 2019. In addition to faster data speeds, 6G should connect us to an “always-sensing network.”
Notable products featured at MWC
Any big event is a showcase for companies to announce new products, and MWC has had its fair share of those.
The T-Mobile G1 (also known as the HTC Dream) was the first commercial phone to feature Google’s Android system.
The HTC Dream, also sold as the T-Mobile G1 in the United States, was launched as the first commercial phone running Google’s Android operating system in 2008. At the time, CNET writers were surprised to find that Google was not interested in hardware but was instead focused on getting its Android platform to as many device types as possible.
With a square shape very different from the smooth curves of its successor, the Galaxy S III, the plastic backplate of the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G could be more refined.
From there, the Android market accelerated and Samsung became one of the biggest players. When it announced the Samsung Galaxy S II at MWC in 2011, the svelte “giant phone” was “as beautiful and premium as when we first saw it,” Jessica Dolcourt wrote in her review.
The Sony Ericsson Experia X1 had a full keyboard and Windows mobile.
Although Android news was a big deal in 2011, the Sony Ericsson Xperia However, it wasn’t offered by any of the carriers at the time, meaning it didn’t benefit from the subsidized pricing that would have made its $800 price tag more affordable.
Windows Phone 7 looked nothing like the Windows Mobile variants, which was a good thing.
Speaking of Microsoft, in 2010 the software giant unveiled the Windows Phone 7 series. It wasn’t the first Windows phone, but the awkwardly named system was a major overhaul whose interface some of my friends still missed. Although people expected one of the most successful tech companies to hit the market and make as much noise as the iPhone, Windows Phones never caught on and the system was retired in 2017.
The HTC One X was introduced in 2012.
It’s hard to believe today, but for a long time, HTC was one of the dominant smartphone manufacturers in the market. The HTC One In the US, AT&T opted to include the 4G LTE network in favor of the quad-core processor, but the phone still impressed with its sleek design and fast performance.
Bluetooth in a toothbrush: In 2014, Oral-B launched an app-connected toothbrush.
As a reminder, mobile does not always refer to phone: in 2014, Oral-B launched the SmartSeries electric toothbrush with Bluetooth 4.0 to connect to a companion app.
The HTC Vive was fully immersive virtual reality.
And in 2016, HTC introduced the Vive VR, an immersive virtual reality headset that eclipsed other VR experiences…and required a powerful PC, lots of cables, and separately mounted sensors that tracked your movements in a room-sized space.
A remarkable product not presented at MWC was the iPhoneannounced by Apple at the Macworld Expo in 2007. However, the iPhone’s impact on the market was felt at MWC the following year, with touchscreen phones establishing what would become the dominant smartphone interface until today.
These are just a few selected tidbits from MWC’s long history, but I hope you get the idea that the conference has evolved from a phone-centric show to one integrating technologies around the phone and beyond. We look forward to what this week’s event will bring us. Something tells me we’ll be hearing a lot about AI.
Watch this: A “robot phone”, new smart glasses and 6G? MWC Preview | Technology today
