This massive annual international gathering, in basking Barcelona, brings together companies from across the world and showcases the latest developments in the mobile world. It also enables the start of many of the conversations that will help shape developments on show at future congresses.

Mobile devices continued to blossom - with more elegant, beautifully finished devices with larger screens appearing on all the manufacturers’ stands. 5 inch displays are now starting to seem like the new norm – with 6 inches now inviting those who value web access and document browsing on the move. The term ‘phablet’ is now used to describe devices with screen sizes of 5.5 inches or greater. Consumers are becoming less self-conscious of holding these slabs up to their face to make calls – and if they have a headset (possibly Bluetooth), then the device can stay in a pocket or bag.

4K (UHDTV) video content support also made an appearance at MWC, with leading vendors keen to show they have solutions for the full range of devices that are likely to come into users pockets as well as living rooms. Increasing screen, camera resolution, storage and processing power all help here.

Wearable devices had been a predicted focus for this MWC. Although there weren’t a huge number on display, Samsung, Sony, Nokia and others were showing some rather visually attractive accessories – in a rainbow of colours. These included wristbands and other devices with sensors for activity, heart-rate etc. – to assist fitness and sporting enthusiasts.

As usual, infrastructure is a major part of MWC, with vendors introducing a range of technologies targetting everything from better use of spectrum, to software that helps operators and content providers build more engaging and profitable services. Much of the emphasis was on licensed use of spectrum (3.5G, 4G and now 5G), in line with the show's organisers' focus, but licence-exempt access is rapidly becoming an increasingly accepted part of the mobile infrastructure. Wi-Fi has proved very adept at relieving the strain on cellular networks and contributing to a better customer experience.

A televised interview with Facebook's CEO highlighted the major opportunities from extending mobile access in the developing world. Facebook has taken an increasing interest in this area and has encouraged mobile operators to make their services more accessible/afforable in order to foster the latent demand which it believes will blossom like flowers following a rain shower in the desert.

900 MHz Wi-Fi was an interesting development highlighted at the show – targeting machine to machine applications with the improved coverage that this band can enable. A number of vendors were targetting machine to machine (m2m) as a real growth opportunity for the mobile industry, but needing some specialisation of service hardware and software to meet the diverse needs of this market.

Other themes growing in mobile industry circles are the impact of Big Data technology and the increasing trend to host services in the Cloud. Privacy and Trust were also up and coming themes.

Now it's over to Samsung and Apple to show us their device-centred view of where mobile is going ....