Mobile World Congress Las Vegas – As a veteran of many Mobile World Congress (MWC) shows, one of the things that struck me when I walked through the doors of the Las Vegas Convention Center is just what poor imitation of the Barcelona show MWC Las Vegas is.
While its European cousin luxuriated across multiple exhibition halls set in a massive fairground center earlier this year, the post-Covid MWC Las Vegas show was confined to just the west hall of the convention center.
Despite the Glitter Gulch's pretensions to offering the biggest and most glitzy of everything, MWC Las Vegas is very much the Barcelona jamboree's poor, ignored relation. And we have the photos to prove it.
This was the entrance to the west hall on the second day of the show:
Things weren't much better on the show floor itself.
Though we did have a chance to meet with some of their executives privately, Ericsson was notably absent from the show floor...again.
Silverlinings' sister site Fierce Wireless also reported that a number of analysts decided to skip the show entirely, choosing instead to use their travel budgets for Barcelona.
Still, there were big names on the show floor. But those didn't translate into much foot traffic despite GSMA's assertion that MWC Las Vegas drew more than 8,000 attendees.
The star of the MWC Las Vegas? T-Mobile, apparently. The operator had the most of the traffic the entire show.
Woof. Viva Las Vegas, indeed!