BARCELONA, Spain, February 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- Increased Attendance at Industry's Leading Mobile Communications Event by 20% over 2010

The GSMA today reported that more than 60,000* visitors from 200 countries attended the 2011 GSMA Mobile World Congress, marking a record for the mobile industry's premier event. The four-day conference and exhibition attracted executives from the world's largest and most influential mobile operators, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies and media and entertainment organisations, as well as government delegations. 51 per cent of this year's Mobile World Congress attendees hold C-level positions, including more than 3,000 CEOs.

"The record attendance to this year's Mobile World Congress is indicative of the impact and importance of mobile in not only technology and telecommunications, but across nearly all facets of the private and public sectors," stated John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd. "Mobile truly is leading a transformation in how the world communicates, how business is conducted and how people live their lives. We are very proud of the contribution that the GSMA and the Mobile World Congress have in furthering this transformation."

The 2011 Congress hosted nearly 1,400 exhibiting companies and occupied more than 58,600 net square metres of exhibition and business meeting space. More than 2,900 international print, Web and broadcast media attended the event to analyse and report on the many significant industry announcements made at the Congress.

Mobile World Congress: Unparalleled Conference Programme

During the event, CEOs from companies including America Movil, AT&T, China Mobile, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Google, HTC, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Research In Motion (RIM), SoftBank, Telefonica, Twitter, Vodafone, Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), WPP and Yahoo!, discussed and debated the trends and issues which are shaping the mobile industry today and into the future. In addition to the keynote programme, the Mobile World Congress conference covered a range of topics, such as applications, mobile advertising, mobile money, mobile health, embedded mobile, cloud computing, network capacity and next-generation network technologies, among many others.

Developers Descend on App Planet

There were more than 45,000 visits to App Planet, a focused event designed to bring together the many critical elements of the broad mobile application ecosystem together in one location. Companies including developerprogram.com, HP, IMGA, Microsoft, Mobile {Dev}Sync, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, WAC and Wireless Industry Partnership each held application developer conferences (ADCs), and App Planet also hosted Macworld Mobile, a developer event targeting Apple iOS developers. App Planet included the Mobile Cloud Forum, sponsored by Cisco, HP, Huawei and NEC, and the LTE Forum, sponsored by Huawei, NEC, Syniverse and ZTE. Overall, more than 12,000 developers attended Mobile World Congress this year.

Unprecedented Attendance by the World's Government Delegations

The GSMA's Ministerial Programme also boasted record attendance, with government delegations from 131 countries meeting in Barcelona, an increase of 50% over 2010. Sponsored this year by Saudi Telecom (Platinum Sponsor), Huawei and Qualcomm (Gold Sponsors), the GSMA's Ministerial Programme is a unique invitation-only event gathering ministers, regulators and CEOs from across the mobile industry for a series of in-depth strategic, policy and regulatory discussions in high-level summits and bilateral meetings.

Mobile World Congress 2012

"The GSMA is committed to holding the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona through 2012," continued Hoffman. "We thank the city of Barcelona, the Government of Catalonia, Fira de Barcelona and all our Barcelona partners for supporting and contributing to such an amazing event, and we look forward to returning to the city next year."

Dates for the 2012 Mobile World Congress are 27 February - 1 March, 2012.

For more information on the 2011 Mobile World Congress, please visit http://www.mobileworldcongress.com.

Note to editors

*This figure includes all attendees for the event, including delegates, exhibitors, contractors and media

About the GSMA

The GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world's mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organisations. The GSMA is focused on innovating, incubating and creating new opportunities for its membership, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile communications industry.

For more information, please visit Mobile World Live, the new online portal for the mobile communications industry, at http://www.mobileworldlive.com or the GSMA corporate website at http://www.gsmworld.com.

SOURCE GSMA