It’s the biggest mobile tech show on the planet and Ganeshspeaks founder & MD Hemang Pandeet brings us his takeaways from the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain from February 22 to 25, 2016
By Hemang Arunbhai Pandit
This year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), widely regarded as the largest mobile technologies show on the planet, was brilliantly boring. Mainly because everyone did all the brilliant stuff that they were expected to do, but there was no major disruption. Held from February 22 to 25 in Barcelona, Spain, the handset biggies launched great phones (without a better battery), the tablet was proclaimed dead (as we already know – and there were no launches or promotions, to underscore the point) and the wearables industry showed that it is struggling with a lack of mass adoption and fragmentation.
The main actors of this show – the mobile operators – struggling with declining voice revenue and increasing data revenue, are hoping to lead a fightback against the OTT (over-the-top) industry, primarily because they do not want to be just a bit pipe. Everything that we, as consumers, might love, will now be launched in 5G, and it will take a few more years to happen. Still, there were three major takeaways from this red-letter event:
1. Virtual Reality or VR is the new fad: With Samsung and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg coming together to launch the Gear VR along with Galaxy S7, VR seems to have taken centerstage and everyone is now looking at pushing its boundaries. An immersive experience is certainly enriching but currently, the side-effects of having it, are proving a bit too much for the average user. Nevertheless, we can expect a good amount of improvement, now that everyone wants a piece of it.
2. Mobile Ad Blocking: This is something that has been worrying the media industry, and was also pretty important at the MWC this year. Funnily enough, there is an entire ecosystem around it. For example, there are startups focusing on bettering the technology; operators who are talking about network-level ad-blocking; device manufacturers who have already adopted this preemptively, and last but not the least, ad agencies who have now started saying that it’s fine, we will find some other way to engage the user and ensure that our top-and-bottomlines are not affected.
3. Free Basics featured as well: This is something that Mark Zuckerberg loves, but India does not. We all know that both Zuckerberg and Facebook (FB) will not abandon this initiative, and that was confirmed at this event. Obviously for FB, taking the lead in providing a stripped-down version of its social networking site to people who have never been online, makes a lot of sense.
There were many other highlights at this year’s MWC, like the fact that Nokia can legally start marketing phones starting this year but it has chosen to wait; like the fact that the Motorola brand will continue to live on; that the LG G5, a modular phone that can be customised like a PC, has been launched and that Sony has launched hands-free and eyes-free gadgets. And here’s saving the best for the last: LG has launched a rolling bot – a home butler targeted at the home-monitoring market.
Hemang Arunbhai Pandit is Founder, MD & CEO, GaneshaSpeaks.com. This was the sixth consecutive MWC that he has attended. This article first appeared in dna of brands on March 7, 2016