BARCELONA First Mobile World Capital until 2018

After an 18-month search, the GSMA announced that Barcelona has been selected as the Mobile World Capital from 2012 to 2018. As the Mobile World Capital, Barcelona will be the home of the mobile industry’s must-attend event, the GSMA Mobile World Congress, and will also develop a range of other programmes and activities that will span the entire year benefiting the worldwide mobile industry.

We commend all of the finalist cities – Barcelona, Milan, Munich and Paris – for their excellent proposals and the huge amount of energy and creativity that was put into them. While all of the cities who competed for this title presented extremely innovative and compelling bids, in the end, Barcelona truly demonstrated that it deserves the title of the Mobile World Capital, with its combination of outstanding exhibition and conference facilities, its transportation and hospitality infrastructure, its commitment to expanding the reach of mobility throughout Barcelona.

Beyond the Mobile World Congress, the Mobile World Capital also features two additional elements: the Mobile World Centre and the Mobile World Festival. The Mobile World Centre will be comprised of permanent and temporary exhibitions which will meld culture and technological innovation, facilities for the development and incubation of mobile solutions, and retail and hospitality venues. The Mobile World Festival, which is targeted to the general public, will incorporate a range of activities including sporting events, music and art festivals, film awards, applications and technology fairs and more.

Mobile World Congress 2012 will remain at Fira de Barcelona Montjuic and will be held 27 February – 1 March 2012.

www.mobileworldcapital.com

2011 Mobile World Congress Barcelona

More than 50,000 people from 200 countries will be in Barcelona from 14 to 17 February to take part in the latest GMSA Mobile World Congress, the world’s most important mobile phone congress.

The number of exhibitors is expected to exceed last year’s figure of 1,300, which means the Fira de Barcelona is going to hold the biggest exhibition in the history of the congress, where visitors will be able to marvel at the latest mobile technologies and solutions from companies like Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Vodafone and Nokia Siemens Networks.

This year’s congress will also set a new record for the number of government representatives attending because there will be delegations from over 110 countries, 30% more than in the previous year.

If social networks were last year’s star attraction, the focus this year will be on mobile applications.

That means a bigger focus on software developers, with a broad range of talks, as well as its partnership with IDG World Expo to produce Macworld Mobile, an event for Apple iPhone and iPad platform developers.

The congress will also feature the Brand App Challenge, with the idea of creating customised brand applications for companies like Coca-Cola, and the first Band App Audition, a competition to develop innovative applications to improve the interaction between artists like Muse, Faithless and Enrique Iglesias and their fans.

Some of the speakers who have confirmed their attendance include the chairman and chief executive officer of Google, as well as top executives from Ericsson, Telefónica, Twitter, HTC and Microsoft.

And the Welsh singer-songwriter Duffy is performing at the GSMA awards ceremony on Tuesday 15 February.

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

Between 15 and 18 February, Barcelona is going to be the world capital of mobile telephony. The Mobile World Congress at the Fira de Barcelona will bring together the top leaders of this industrial technology, who are not going to miss the most important event in the world in this sector.

During the four days the congress lasts many activities, talks and events will be held, along with presentations of the latest advances in mobile technologies. It will also see the presentation of the Global Mobile Awards, the sector’s most prestigious awards.

Place:  Fira Barcelona  |  Address: Av Reina Maria Cristina, 2

Mobile World Congress Website