Next week, Mobile World Congress will return to Barcelona, two years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the world‘s largest mobile phone trade show and a year after many of its biggest exhibitors were not in attendance. . Not everyone will be returning to this year’s live event (Sony, Lenovo, etc. did not), but with the pandemic clearly slowing down in Europe, it’s not hard to feel that the show has regained its full strength.
But it’s also an event that will show just how much the smartphone industry has transformed in recent years. As things stand now, it seems likely that all of the biggest hardware launches at the show will come from China, such as OPPO, Honor, TCL, Xiaomi’s sub-brand Poco, and Huawei, not from Europe, the US, or even the likes of South Korea in previous years Brands in Asian countries.
Honor, for example, plans to announce the Magic 4 series at the show, marking its first flagship smartphone launch in the West since its split from former parent Huawei. While the company released the mid-range Honor 50 globally last year, the Magic 4 is rumored to use Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, making it a direct (and likely to be) affordable) competitors.
Meanwhile, Oppo said it plans to announce “several high-end flagships” at this year’s MWC, along with augmented reality and 5G “R&D results.” The company just unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Find X5 Pro, on Thursday, but still intends to use this year’s show to make big announcements.
There’s also TCL, which said it plans to announce more 30-series smartphone offerings after unveiling its first two products at CES earlier this year, the 30 XE 5G and 30 V5G. Xiaomi’s sub-brand Poco plans to announce the Poco X4 Pro 5G and Poco M4 Pro at its February 28 event. Oppo’s sister brand, Realme, promised to announce “the world‘s fastest smartphone charging technology” at this year’s show, and for those keeping an eye out, that’s faster than the 125W UltraDart technology it announced a few years ago.
In contrast, major mobile phone brands outside of China have rarely shown interest in using MWC to deliver big consumer-facing news. Google has never released a smartphone at MWC, and Apple has given the show as much weight as it has given to other major trade shows, aka “not so much.” But even Samsung, which most recently used MWC in 2018 to announce its flagship Galaxy S smartphone, appears to be focusing its MWC launch this year on laptops. Only HMD, which is based in Finland and now makes Nokia-branded smartphones, traditionally combines the launch of its main product with the Barcelona trade show.
MWC is increasingly focusing on Chinese companies, but that doesn’t mean it’s losing its relevance, as these phones are more popular with customers around the world than ever before. As of last year, IDC reported that three of the world‘s five most popular smartphone brands — Xiaomi, Oppo and vivo — were headquartered in China, although the first and second positions were taken by Samsung and Apple. The situation is similar in Europe, where Counterpoint Research reports that seven of the top 10 most popular smartphone brands are headquartered in China.
This trend is an interesting showcase of who can benefit the most from major announcements that go hand-in-hand with crowded trade shows. Companies like Samsung and Apple aren’t showing much interest in this because their physical presence around the world allows them to hold big launches in isolation from major trade shows. But for a company like Honor or TCL, a show like MWC is more of a valuable channel for a ton of media to come in to target their wares.
News at MWC 2022 will almost certainly be dominated by Chinese tech brands, who are doing a better job than anyone at keeping the heat at Europe’s biggest mobile show.