Thursday’s highlights at MWC26 Barcelona

Welcome to the final day of this year’s event

Analyst session – what did we learn from MWC26?

The annual analyst wrap-up is one of MWC’s most anticipated sessions, and this year was no different. Peter Jarich of GSMA Intelligence hosted a sharp panel featuring Adaora Okeleke of Analysys Mason, Greg Collins of Exact Ventures, Roland Montagne of IDATE and Abi Marshall of GSMA Intelligence – each sharing their own take on the week’s defining moments.

As you’d expect, AI dominated conversation from multiple angles: sovereign AI and the role operators play in building it, physical AI bringing robots and smart devices to life on the showfloor, and the growing importance of cross-industry collaboration.

On the road ahead, the panel was united: the industry needs to move beyond using AI purely for cost-cutting and start proving its value on the top line. "You can't save your way to growth," said Peter.

The good news is the tools, the ambition and the momentum are all there.

And the winner is...

4YFN: last night proved, yet again, that the 4YFN Awards judging panel has one of the toughest gigs in the industry. And it was Spanish startup Biorce, an AI platform for clinical trials, that took this year’s crown. “The quality of the startups this year is just amazing,” said Pere Duran, Director at 4YFN. “All five of them will be great teams, and we will hear a lot about them in the future.”
EQUALS in Tech: presented by Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of ITU, the EQUALS in Tech Awards celebrate organisations advancing gender equality in tech. Travelling to MWC from Palestine, an emotional Nadiah Sabaneh of FINOMENA took home the Leadership in Tech award – a goal 20 years in the making. Her rallying cry for women in tech around the world: “It's not a moment, it's a momentum.” Read the GSMA’s inclusivity report findings here, and check out the full list of winners.
GLOMOs: it was standing room only at this year’s Global Mobile (GLOMO) Awards. Earlier in the day, Samsung clinched Best in Show for its S26 Ultra, its standout feature a built-in privacy display that hides the phone’s entire screen, or specific apps, notifications, PINs, patterns and passwords. Here are all of this year’s GLOMOs winners.

Totes amazing: MWC merchandise, ranked.

We love a bit of free merch, but when you’ve walked round the showfloor and collected a water bottle, a giant flower, a cute plushie and a travel pillow, you need something to carry your haul in. Enter the tote.

Which did we like best? We asked a former fashion journalist to pick her top five and list them in order of stylishness:

Mediatek: translucent lurid yellow. “Surprisingly modish given its colour, solidly constructed and fits under the arm well - my clear winner.”
SoftBank: minimalist, black with white graphics. “The hipsters are at MWC.”
LG: solid white, very capacious. “A rival for the ever-useful Ikea bag.”
Asterfusion: shiny silver. “Quite cool.”
Suse: pea green with grinning chameleon. “Cutesy, great for kids’ PE kit”

Scams: who is the weakest link?

This year’s SEC CON was a curious mix of light-hearted and deeply serious, from Santander’s Daniel Cuthbert urging companies to heed the advice of legendary popstar Vanilla Ice in the fight against scams (“Stop. Collaborate. And listen”), to Jio’s Karsten Nohl attempting to fool the crowd with his DeepFake video of Elon Musk.

On a more serious note, with $2.7 billion lost through impersonation fraud in the US alone (2024), scams are a hot topic for the industry. Experts debated whether humans are the weakest link when it comes to scams, how a non-blame culture might encourage increased reporting and whether we put enough responsibility on vendors to play their part.

For more on how the mobile industry is tackling fraud and crime, check out the GSMA’s industry-wide initiative to safeguard digital trust United Against Scams and the recently launched Mobile Security Landscape Report 2026.

In the words of GSMA CTO, Alex Sinclair, “Fraud doesn’t know international boundaries and doesn’t recognise them. Social engineering and impersonation scams are organised, intentional and growing.”

Phones, glorious phones

It wouldn't be MWC without a few jaw-dropping device launches. Here's a round-up of this week’s hottest:

Leica Leitzphone by Xiaomi: Leica's first-ever international smartphone made its global debut right here in Barcelona at the start of the week. Built on the same bones as the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, its headline feature is a physical rotating Leica camera ring for manual zoom and exposure control.
Honor Robot Phone: Honor used MWC to officially reveal two new devices, its Robot Phone and the Honor Magic V6. The Robot is a device that looks like any other modern smartphone until, quite suddenly, it doesn't, with a nifty gimbal camera that emerges from the top of the phone.
Motorola Razr Fold: Motorola debuted its first ever book-style foldable at MWC26, and it arrived with some serious bragging rights, boasting screens that are brighter than any rival by a considerable margin.
Nothing Phone (4a): officially launched today, Nothing's new budget-friendly (4a) lineup took to the MWC26 showfloor, giving people an up-close look at the full range of colourways.
TECNO Modular Phone (concept): what if your phone could shapeshift? TECNO's concept Modular Magnetic Interconnection Technology lets you magnetically snap interchangeable modules (like camera lenses, battery packs and speakers) onto a wafer-thin 4.9mm base device.

Quote of the day

“There are such great prospects around sovereign AI, and I think it's going to open up a lot more discussion for the industry, particularly when we're all thinking about where the next big world opportunity will come from.”
- Adaora Okeleke, Principal Analyst, Analysys Mason