Mobile World Congress kicks-off

Simon Andrews, founder of mobile agency addictive!, looks at the start of the GSMA Mobile World Congress.

As the Mobile World Congress opened in Barcelona yesterday we saw news that set up the week well. The ITU forecast 5 billion mobile subscriptions by the end of 2010.

To put that into context, read this quote from mobile guru Tomin Ahonen:

“… on the planet there are 1.2 billion PCs of any kind including netbooks; 1.6 billion TV sets, 1.7 Billion internet users (including those who access at an internet cafe, or via a mobile phone); and 3.9 billion FM radio receivers.”

So given the size of the opportunity it’s no surprise to see some of the big players seeking to (re)position themselves in mobile.

We saw a number of the big mobile operators (supported by handset manufacturers LG, Samsung and Sony Erickson) announce an initiative around apps – designed to counter the power of Apple’s app store, which has been so successful in attracting developers.

Intel and Nokia both seek to capture past glory through MeToo – essentially a new operating system to compete with Android, Apple and Nokia’s Symbian.

And Microsoft rolled out Steve Balmer to announce Windows Phone 7 – which looked really interesting but seems to be struggling to get handset manufacturers really excited – with the first phones not due out until the end of this year.