Mobile World Congress 2025 was a surprisingly exciting show because it was actually about smartphones for a change. It’ll come as a surprise to those not really familiar with the event, but the huge trade show has such a broad remit, covering everything and anything that could be considered mobile technology, phones sometimes take a bit of a back seat. Not this year though, and it was fantastic to see.
How many phones?
Three big names dominated the smartphone headlines at MWC, and they all brought more than one phone to the show. Samsung was a surprise, as although it used to come to MWC with its new S series phones, since it decided to hold its own Unpacked events it has kept a modest presence there. This year though it started MWC off with the new Galaxy A36 and Galaxy A56 phones, its mid-range alternatives to the Galaxy S25 series, which always prove popular with buyers.
Xiaomi followed Samsung’s announcement with a host of new devices. The Xiaomi 15 Ultra was the most exciting phone of the show, but the standard Xiaomi 15 is no slouch, and it dedicated about half of its two-hour, jam-packed launch event to the two devices. Straight after MWC officially started (Samsung and Xiaomi used the weekend lead-up to launch phones), Nothing announced the Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro, which look different to any other phone available today, and are highly desirable.
Three brands, six phones, and also three different reasons for showing at MWC. Xiaomi continues to promote itself in Europe, Nothing wants to show off its unique designs to a larger audience, and Samsung knows the importance of its A-series. It had no intention of letting other brands dominate MWC this year, even if it didn’t hold a full event. This is already more brand new phones we’ve seen at some MWC shows in the recent past, but we’re not done yet.
Concepts and craziness
Look past the big name brands with phones you’ll be able to buy soon, and you’d find even more phones and tech driven by phones at MWC 2025. HMD (the home of Nokia-branded phones) came with the HMD Fusion X1 and a handful of Nokia feature phones, some promoting its recent partnership with the Barcelona football club. TCL announced the TCL 60XE and the Nxtpaper 11 Plus tablet for the U.S. (and several phones for other regions too) Tecno came with the Camon 40 phone, and even Realme didn’t want to be left out, as it announced the global release of the color-changing Realme 14 Pro Plus.
Realme was one of the brands with concept phones too. Its crazy Ultra camera/phone hybrid with interchangeable camera lenses on the back almost outshone the more polished (but slightly less fun) Xiaomi Modular phone that followed the same concept, only with a high-tech magnetic connection system for the lenses. Tecno had a tri-fold smartphone, Lenovo had a crazy concept laptop with a folding screen, and T-Mobile talked more about its AI Phone, which was first discussed at MWC 2024.
Chinese smartphone brands certainly made the most of MWC 2025, coming with a mix of smartphones, laptops, wearables, and concept devices ensuring there’s something for everyone. You may be looking for Apple in all this, but it doesn’t attend MWC. However, it is a master at diverting attention its way, which it did with the Apple iPhone 16e the week before the show, and the new iPad Air as the show was at its height. These are also mobile products announced around, if not actually at, MWC 2025.
AI and even 6G too
Digital Trends asked Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart, who attended the show, for his insight into MWC 2025 and the wealth of smartphones.
“This year’s Mobile World Congress featured a lot of smartphones from Chinese brands, some are coming to Europe but not to the U.S. for political and distribution reasons” he told us by email. “Nothing’s 3a showed that mid-tier phones can have distinctive design and good cameras.”
Greengart also talked about the technology that went beyond smartphones at MWC 2025, but crucially he still highlighted very much smartphone-based tech.
“MediaTek and Qualcomm showed off their next-generation modems that support faster speeds and more flexibility, especially at the edge of the network or when uploading content,” he continued. “I had multiple discussions about satellite connectivity beyond emergency services where the business model is still being worked out. 6G was mostly a background discussion topic, and on-device AI is a huge focus for smartphone vendors and their silicon suppliers.”
AI was a big topic, as demonstrated by Honor, Tecno, and Oppo at the show, but its presence at MWC wasn’t quite as prominent for consumers as I expected. I had several meetings (notably HMD and TCL) where AI was barely discussed, and Xiaomi spent only a short time on its mobile AI features during its launch event. For businesses, infrastructure, and software, AI was still the biggest talking point though.
Phones saved MWC
Compared to MWC 2024, where only a handful of new phones were announced, MWC 2025 has been a return to what the show was best known for in the past. What’s more, the new smartphones arrived with more fanfare and extra hype, while the surprising amount of concept mobile devices prove brands are eager to show they aren’t standing still, and are working to make devices more exciting.
HMD is a good example of how smaller players are coming up with other intriguing ways to stand out. Making phones that promote online safety for kids isn’t as headline grabbing as a trifold phone or a pair of smart glasses with a screen, but the company has approached it in an intriguing way, and gone all-in on it as a strategy too. But at the heart of HMD’s plan is a new smartphone, the Fusion X1, and there are more to follow. This sums up the trend that smartphones are back at MWC 2025 very well.
It seems odd to rejoice that a mobile technology trade show was about smartphones for a change, but the sheer amount of smartphones and smartphone-adjacent tech at MWC 2025 made it unusual, particularly compared to the last few years. What’s more, it also demonstrates MWC itself has avoided becoming a primarily business-orientated show, as it threatened to do in the limited attendance events that took place after 2020. We look forward to seeing MWC 2026 continue the trend.
