The Latest Industry Analysis of the Mobile Telecommunications Market “Direct to cell” summary [Warpspace CSO talks about Mobile World Congress 2024 Part I】
Warpspace, which aims to provide optical inter-satellite communication service, has been selected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for the SBIR program in FY2023 for a project to develop optical communication modems and routers with compatibility and interoperability in satellite optical communication networks (*1).
As a trend in space equipment development in general, the diversion of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products that are also used on the ground is important.
Based on such background, Warpspace CSO Hirokazu Mori attended MWC 2024 (Mobile World Congress), one of the world’s largest events related to terrestrial mobile communications, including mobile phones, held in Barcelona from February 28 to 29, 2024.
(*1 [Warpspace] Warpspace Selected for NEDO’s “SBIR Program” for FY2023)
In the first part of this article, we explain the latest trends in the mobile telecommunications device market based on an interview with Warpspace CSO Hirokazu Mori, who participated in the event on-site.
Click here to read the second part.
The market for mobile telecommunications equipment is so huge that there were over 100,000 attendees. In addition to mobile communication technology companies such as HUAWEI, SAMSUNG, and Qualcomm, global IT companies such as IBM and semiconductor vendors such as Intel each had huge booths.
Mori, who had attended MWC before last year said, “The rise of China was impressive.”
One of the most noticeable changes is in the booths exhibited by the various companies. Companies are competing with each other in terms of booth space and the scale of their exhibits. While in previous years, U.S. companies such as Microsoft were the most prominent, this year’s booth was dominated by the Chinese company HUAWEI, he said.
Besides, there seems to have been a change from last year in the way company booths were set up. Both the U.S. and China are working on the semiconductor industry, which will play a leading role at MWC, as a national policy. A semiconductor is not only the foundation of a nation’s telecommunication infrastructure, but it is also an extremely important industry in terms of exporting semiconductor products worldwide and gaining control of each country’s telecommunication infrastructure market.
For this reason, Mori says that since last year’s MWC, both the U.S. and China have tended to focus on keeping information from leaking out to each other. The booths of some companies were surrounded by partitions so that the inside of the booth could not be seen from the outside, and visitors had to make an appointment through the reception desk at the entrance to visit the booths.
This year, however, Mori said, Chinese companies had a higher percentage of closed booths than U.S. companies, although the overall trend was slightly less pronounced.
The reasons for this, Mori considered,” I’m not certain, but the general feeling is that the more capable organizations hide things and the less capable organizations reveal everything. It is not impossible to overlook the possibility that this change is an expression of Chinese firms’ confidence in U.S. firms.”
Although the daily news reports on China’s macroeconomic stall, IT hardware has been increasing its presence at conferences in general. From a security perspective, we must keep a close eye on China’s future trends.
(Author: Junichiro Nakazawa, Translation: Natsumi Kawaguchi)
