Shanghai hailed as best MWC venue

BARCELONA, Spain: Shanghai is “the best place in Asia” to host the Mobile World Congress (MWC), a prominent mobile technology fair, Francesc Fajula, chief executive officer of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation (MWCapital) said here on Friday.

As the organizer of the Spanish business delegation to the annual event, Fajula said that MWCapital has witnessed six highly successful editions of MWC taking place in Shanghai. He highlighted that the previous edition before the pandemic attracted approximately 70,000 attendees, solidifying Shanghai’s reputation as the prime location in Asia for hosting such a fair.

Scheduled to occur from June 28 to 30 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center (Sniec), MWC Shanghai 2023 will bring together industry professionals, analysts, media, and global companies to showcase their latest products and technological innovations.

“This is the first MWC Shanghai since the pandemic and what we’re seeing is, as happened in Barcelona, there’s great interest in returning to normal. So we’re expecting the attendance to be close to that of the last Shanghai fair before the pandemic,” Fajula said.

The main MWC event is held every year in Barcelona and regularly attracts over 100,000 attendees worldwide. The first MWC Shanghai took place in 2015.

“Some 21 percent of the attendees to the MWC Barcelona are Asian, and most of them are Chinese. That makes the MWC Shanghai the second-most important MWC in the world,” Fajula said.

MWCapital recently announced the selection of 12 Spanish startup companies that will participate in MWC Shanghai, representing various sectors including marketing, telecommunications, commerce, and agriculture.

“Based on what the companies have told us, their main interest is to break into the Chinese market with products that have already proven successful in the Spanish market,” he said.