Mobile World Congress: Our Three Favorite Things

By Amy Vale

This year’s Mobile World Congress hit record highs in attendance with over 72,000 visitors – a big jump from the 67,000 who came out in 2012. What that tells us is that mobile is no longer just an add-on; it’s becoming a necessity for publishers, app developers and ad networks to tap into the $20 billion monetization opportunity revealed by analyst Mary Meeker. The good news is that the gap between the time spent on mobile devices worldwide and ad spending is expected to shrink even further. According to eMarketer, global mobile ad spending is expected to see double-digit growth, approaching $37 billion by 2016.

With all of these stats, it’s no wonder Mobile World Congress was such a world-class event for the mobile industry. Here are three of our favorite things from this year’s Mobile World Congress.

Our aquarium delighted and calmed attendees.

One of the best parts of Mobile World Congress is the showmanship and beautiful lengths exhibitors go to create a show-stopper experience at their booths. It was a visual smorgasbord of sky-high glass displays, larger-than-life signage, more tech gadgets than you could count and even acrobatic dancers in the case of HTC. Not to be biased, but our own booth was pretty spectacular itself and one of my favorites for a few reasons. If you look at the photos of our booth on our Facebook page, you’ll see why so many people were entranced by the aquarium (with over 150 fish of varying colors and sizes) and commented on its calming effect amidst such a frenetic and loud environment.

Relationship building was a top priority.

With an event that draws such huge crowds, exhibitors and press buzz, forging new relationships and strengthening existing ones is more important than ever. This was definitely the case at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Information sharing was at its best, especially in the thought leadership panels and sessions. Networking was also on everyone’s minds because it removed the formality and structure of walled business meetings and conference calls. I myself had a number of informal chats in the contexts of dinners and cocktail parties. And idea generation happened in real-time on the exhibition floor. It was really very inspiring to see it all unfold in front of me, especially considering it was all done on little to no sleep at all.

The new venue lent itself to the world-class event.

The new venue was much better equipped to handle the sheer volume of visitors (as we mentioned previously, a record high of 72,000) that came through the week-long event. I must tip my hat to the GSMA team for doing an excellent job at preparing, planning, strategizing (even for mishaps that might occur in the 11^th hour) and execution. The event was, by far, one of the best Mobile World Congress events I've attended in the last few years and really allowed all who attended to focus their energies on showcasing and launching new and innovative products, sharing their mobile knowledge and, of course, getting down to the real “business.”