The world’s biggest mobile phone fair throws open its doors in Barcelona, Spain, today with the sector looking to artificial intelligence (AI) to try to reverse declining sales.
Phone makers are to focus on the unique AI-powered tools of their latest handsets at the four-day Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, where 95,000 attendees and 2,400 exhibitors from around the world are expected to attend.
Telecom operators are expected to use the event to explore how AI can help improve their operations, from boosting security to providing better customer service.
Photo: AFP
AI “is clearly democratizing and is now embedded everywhere: in phones, in devices, in networks,” said Thomas Husson, principal analyst at Forrester Research, adding that it is a reviving innovation in the sector.
The event comes as global smartphone shipments declined 3.2 percent to 1.17 billion units last year. It was the second consecutive yearly decline, as consumers took longer to upgrade their devices due to a lack of innovations, high inflation and economic uncertainties, International Data Corp (IDC) said.
However, shipments rose 8.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year to 326.1 million units which suggests “momentum is moving quickly toward recovery,” IDC said in a report on Jan. 15.
Google and South Korean giant Samsung Electronics Co have both recently unveiled new flagship handsets with flashy AI-power tools such as advanced photo-editing and easier online search which they are expected to highlight.
Samsung is planning to unveil its first wearable smart ring as part of its health lineup at the MWC, the South Korean firm said yesterday.
The company is to publicly display the Galaxy Ring for the first time after teasing it last month at the Galaxy S24 smartphone series launch in California. The Galaxy Ring offers users more personalized and seamless experiences backed by advances in AI, Samsung said in a statement.
Visitors at the MWC would also be able to see new health features on Galaxy Watch6 series paired with the Galaxy S24, prior to public availability later this year, Samsung said.
The Galaxy Ring’s official launch is expected later this year.
Other smaller handset makers such as China’s Honor Terminal Co (榮耀) are set to unveil new devices at the event. Honor’s new flagship phone features a camera with AI motion-sensing capabilities that can detect and automatically take a picture of a moving object at the best moment.
AI had already “kicked off” before the MWC last year, but “a year later we have a much better idea of how operators and the mobile industry can take advantage of it,” said Peter Jarich, head of intelligence at telecoms industry group GSMA, the event’s organizer.
Among the 1,100 scheduled speakers are Dell Technologies Inc founder and CEO Michael Dell, and Microsoft Corp president Brad Smith.
Aside from AI, discussions are expected to focus on the consolidation of the European telecoms market after the EU on Tuesday last week approved the merger of the Spain operations of French telecoms giant Orange SA with its Spanish rival Masmovil Group.
There is also likely to be debate about whether big tech should contribute to the cost of deploying the networks their products rely on, a notion commonly known as “fair share.”
The annual congress, which has been held in Barcelona since 2006, initially focused on phones but has since expanded to include all sorts of connected devices such as drones and robots. Among the more eye-catching devices which are to be on display is the working model of what US firm Alef Aeronautics Inc said is the world’s first “real” flying car and a lifelike robotic dog by Tecno Mobile that can understand voice commands.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary