Mobile World Congress to start Monday in Barcelona

The Mobile Wold Congress (MWC) will begin on Monday in the city of Barcelona with the presence of 75,000 delegates from 200 counries and regions as well as 1,800 companies from the mobile telecommunications sector. The four day event, which will be opened by Prince Felipe de Borbon, will see the opening speech given by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The MWC is a leading international exhibition in the mobile sector, bringing together the latest advances in the sector along with representatives of hardware producers, service operators and professionals from the sector to analyse the future of the sector. The event means the 34,500 hotel rooms in Barcelona's 365 hotels are filled to capacity with prices having in some case more than tripled to an average of around 230 euros (315 U.S. dollars) a night, helping to leave an estimated 365 million euros in the city's economy and once again boosting Barcelona's image as both a venue for tourism and big scale events. "On a hotel and tourist level, the city has shown Barcelona's capacity to hold events of this kind," commented the representative for Catalonia's hotel and tourism sector. As well as Zuckerberg, the 2014 MWC will also see Jan Koum, whose Whats App application was recently bought by the social networking giant for 13.8 billion euros, while the debate at this year's congress will look at security in the wake of recent revelations over U.S. spying on private data sent through social network sites, SMS etc. During the event, South Korean company Samsung will present its Galaxy S5 with more applications and services, while the MWC will see Samsung and Google certify an agreement for closer collaboration in software. LG and Sony will also show their new 2014 models, while Chinese manufacturers Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi are seeing how their market share continues to grow, not just in their homeland, but all over the world. Microsoft will also attract attention after their purchase of Nokia and their new CEO Satya Nadella will unveil the company's plans for future development in Barcelona, while Firefox OS, Ubuntu, Sailfish and Tizen will continue to promote their alternatives to the Android and Apple (IOS) operating systems. Host nation Spain will be represented by 149 companies of telecommunications, mobile network solutions, software and contents, with Spain's flagship company Telefonica. The event will also showcase round tables, press conferences and discussions, as well as hosting the popular App Planet, and the mPowered industries, which is a new meeting point for companies in the health, publicity and tourism sectors.