Mobile World Congress, a major annual event in the mobile industry, returns to Barcelona, Spain February 26 to March 1, 2018, with the theme "Creating a Better Future." The show will once again set the stage for demonstrations and presentations of new products and technologies in the mobile industry.

A visitor walks past a 5G sign during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, 28 February, 2017. Reuters

Announcements are expected regarding the development of 5G and networks of the future, as well as related content and security. Over four days, more than 110,000 professionals from 208 countries are expected to head to Catalonia for MWC, including some 2,300 exhibitors and 320 speakers.

Speakers already announced evidently include Sunil Bharti Mittal — founder of Bharti Enterprises and GSMA chairman — as well as a host of personalities from the telecoms world, like McAfee CEO Christopher Young, BT Group CEO Gavin Patterson, Ericsson president and CEO Borje Ekholm, NTT DOCOMO president and CEO Kazuhiro Yoshizawa, Red Hat president and CEO Jim Whitehurst, Vodafone Group chief executive Vittorio Colao and Rajeev Misra of SoftBankVision Fund.

Moreover, like each year, the Global Mobile Awards will crown the best in mobile innovation with awards in 38 categories, including automotive, health, retail, travel, education and smart cities, as well as technology breakthroughs for smartphones, wearables, network infrastructure, systems and IoT evolution.

Mobile World Congress is staged each year by the GSMA, a trade body that represents the interests of around 800 mobile network operators in 220 countries.