Event overview:

MWC is the world’s biggest mobile event organized by GSMA. This year, it was held between 14-17th of Feb in Barcelona with participation of over 60M professionals 1400 companies from various industries, majority being the carriers and technology companies. In the agenda, there were many parallel company exhibitions, demo shows, panels and keynote speeches from the top executives (chairmans of big companies like Google, Microsoft, Nokia etc) talking mainly about emerging technologies, the industry challenges, partnerships.

Highlights/Trends

• Ericsson estimates 20billion mobile devices by 2020, where today’s number is 5billion
• Connected devices will be the next big thing changing consumer’s lives with cloud computing
• Data is the new oil for the world and analytics will be more and more important in the coming future!
  • Handset providers are bringing multi platform connected mobile phones (social platform content aggregation) making user experience simpler while enriching the social interaction.
• Mobile apps is and will be disrupting every industry (media, purchasing, retail, travel, transportation etc)
  • Mid-term future –We will see more of mobile devices predicting future with intelligent apps based on user preferences and other data user provides to cloud (social media, e-Commerce etc)
  • NFC mobile payments/money will be growing further both in emerging markets and developed markets with investments from other players in the ecosystem. Currently Google, Orange has this item in their priority list.
  • Mobile World is focusing on Emerging markets as the next big opportunity to invest. Nokia-MS partnership to bring smart phones to the rest of the 80% of the world, mWomen & mHealth Associations to help people and the industry to grow in the emerging markets are few examples of industry partnerships.

Opportunity for FMCG brands

• Invest in collecting consumer data and start building analytic capabilities
• Invest in emerging markets to reach more consumers
  • Invest in further partnership with mobile industry through platforms like MMA, GSMA to deal faster with challenges like SMS costs, leadtimes for connectivity etc.

Some Interesting Technologies, Vendors, Partnership Opportunities:

1. TrendIT- People Analytics via mobile location tracking
2. Coupon.com – online coupon service for FMCG (working model in US)
3. Intel Labs- eCommerce outdoor solutions with motion detect technology
4. Gemalto – embedded simcard technology for mCRM in emerging markets reducing SMS costs and simpler user experience
5. IBM India Lab- Spoken Web: IVR solution for emerging markets where there is no web presence