The GSM Association's Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the largest, most significant and most successful global mobile event in the world. An estimated 50,000+ visitors gather each year in Barcelona to do business, to discuss the hottest trends in the mobile communications industry, and to participate in its future.

In a mixture of private meetings and public conference sessions, chief executives of the world's biggest mobile operators and vendors meet to lay out their agendas for the year ahead and exchange ideas about how best to serve the world's 2.5 billion mobile phone users. Each year, hundreds of new products make their global debut at the Congress exhibition, which showcases more than 1,300 companies from all segments of the industry.

Mobile entertainment and content forms a major theme throughout the show with an entire hall dedicated to multimedia content for mobile devices.

A feature of the week are the GSM Awards which uniquely offer organisations across the mobile value chain the opportunity to showcase their latest mobile products, services and initiatives to the wider world. The Awards are open to all eligible mobile industry and supporting industry companies in the mobile eco-system - GSMA Members, Associate Members and non-members - as defined in the individual category eligibility descriptions.

The presentation of the awards takes place during the Mobile World Congress (formerly the 3GSM World Congress) the world's leading mobile industry event held annually in Barcelona.

We have been reporting on this event since 1995 and from 2004 we have devoted a special pictorial report on the latest developments which provides you with a pictorial view of the event.