It was no surprise that AI dominated MWC this year. But there were lots of other notable trends on the rise – including cybersecurity and data centres – and some that were disappointingly overlooked. Find out what the STL Partners team saw and missed at MWC 2025.

MWC 2025

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) is a tech show, not a telecom one. Overall, telcos themselves have a smaller presence and less floor space than in previous years, with only a handful of the large European and Middle Eastern operators maintaining sizable stands. Their technology suppliers – for networking capabilities, systems integrators, enterprise service partners, device and silicon manufacturers – continue to take a larger share of the floor and the newsreels.

In discussions with technology suppliers and partners, there was an undercurrent narrative that their telco customers are increasingly focused on reducing costs to improve profitability – whether in network operations or in the way they deliver services. For some, this suggests telcos are losing hope that they can drive meaningful revenue growth from service innovation and instead, must protect margins through lower costs.

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However, there is a ‘glass half full’ view of this situation: telcos are finally learning to operate in a leaner way in which every investment must deliver a return – whether that’s a measurable cost reduction in operations or customer uptake of new services. Following significant efforts over the last two to three years to modernise and automate OSS and BSS stacks, leading vendors are now able to report concrete evidence of faster process resolution and improved customer traction for their telco customers. This stands in contrast to previous years when hard evidence was scant. Meanwhile, many of the demos and presentations we saw on telco stands this year were grounded more in reality than some of the eye-catching but unrealistic demos in previous years. This suggests greater focus on solving real customer challenges than a ‘build and they will come’ mindset.

Alongside the age-old debate of whether telcos can innovation and grow, some of the big trends running through MWC this year were:

• AI was everywhere, and especially the flavour of the day – agentic AI. Every stand, every conversation, every keynote mentioned AI. You will see a special section on AI in this report, as well as the technology being weaved into each of the other sections.
• Telecom is following the money into data centres: Nokia closed its acquisition of Infinera with a view of targeting IP networks in data centres for growth, while SK Telecom announced data centre partnerships with Elice, Giga Computing and Schneider Electric to ensure a strong AI infrastructure foundation at the bottom of its ‘AI Pyramid Strategy’.
• Satellites are taking off: Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile announced the creation of a jointly owned satellite company that will provide direct-to-device (D2D) services to mobile operators. That said, constellations are still small – AST SpaceMobile has five low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites in operation now, with an aim to have 45-60 by 2026 – so we expect it to take another couple of years before satellite can address coverage gaps more reliably.

MWC was not spared the geopolitical tensions dominating the news over the last two months. On the positive side, there was genuine excitement among representatives from outside of Europe and North America around DeepSeek’s ability to offer cost-effective AI. By contrast, for example, we saw a global hyperscaler refusing to conduct a demo of one of its AI solutions for an employee from a Chinese competitor. However, the main place where geopolitics were present was the keynotes, with representatives of EU and US regulators clearly demonstrating different perspectives. Mistal AI’s CEO Arthur Mensch saw opportunities in Europe where telcos (and other companies) might increasingly turn to homegrown technologies to avoid being caught in unpredictable shifts in geopolitics. Even the now-traditional joint presentation of the CEOs of the ‘big four’ European operators (Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone) which again was all about a push for less telco regulation, had a slight taste of geopolitics.

The main missing topic from the show was 6G which was only muttered sporadically. We applaud the industry for this pragmatism, as it is still working on monetising 5G. The race for the next ‘G’ can wait a bit longer while telcos grapple with the more immediate opportunities.

Table of contents

• Overarching themes at MWC 2025
  • Telecom vs tech and growth vs costs
• Pervasive AI
• Organisational change
  • Changes in leadership, changes in tone at MWC?
• Consumer
  • On the backburner
  • AI taking centre stage in smartphones
  • AI is all the rage across consumer services
  • Other themes
• Enterprise platforms
  • Telecom APIs: Building a commercial proposition
  • Other notable innovations in the B2B2X space
• Network innovation
  • Cloud is now table stakes
  • Open RAN in two flavours
  • Network autonomy – mind the gap
  • NTNs – getting set for takeoff
• Private networks sit quietly in the background
• Edge computing
• Security was high on the agenda
  • Trends in security within telcos
  • Fraud and security propositions
• Data centres
• Sustainability
  • Sustainability overshadowed by AI
  • Key themes and announcements
  • Key takeaways
• Quantum – A growing presence
  • Telcos showcasing quantum-safe services
  • Key announcements/demos
  • Key takeaways
• Bonus section: The weird and wonderful

Related research

• The path to telco growth: STL Partners’ manifesto
• Network innovation as an engine for growth: A manifesto
• Applying the platform mindset: STL Partners’ enterprise manifesto
• Consumer manifesto: How telcos can grow their consumer business

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