It is attended primarily by device manufacturers, network equipment providers, representatives of wireless carriers, and the press, among others.

Its annual attendance is generally around 100,000 people, while mobile phone manufacturers often use the conference to unveil upcoming devices.

For the next few years, the event moved to a new city each time, passing through Nice, Berlin, Lisbon, Athens, and Madrid, before setting in 1996 in Cannes.

In 2008 the GSM Association, which had been formed in 1996 and had taken an increasing interest in the event, completed the purchase of the show with the name changing to Mobile World Congress for the first time.

This included major vendors and operators such as Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Intel, LG, Nokia, STMicroelectronics, Vivo, and Vodafone.

[6][7][8] On 12 February 2020, GSMA CEO John Hoffman announced that MWC 2020 had been cancelled, stating that the event had become "impossible" to host under these conditions.

[10] On 23 September 2020, due to the potential of COVID-19 to affect the 2021 event, the GSMA announced that it would postpone the Mobile World Congress Barcelona to the last week of June.