No writing on the wall is bad news for the GSMA
Comment I've been trying to work out what GSMA does – apart from Mobile World Congress, that is. The list is rather impressive: it does a lot of very wonderful things.
The trouble is, all of those splendid projects seem to depend on MWC being a financial success.
I can't see much else that makes money for the GSMA. I can see a lot, though, which requires real money.
That list isn't chickenfeed, is it? It's programmes and initiatives, as the official blurb puts it. Some of that is useful, other bits are mission-critical for the communications business. Others are socially important for third world development.
All of them live on the success of Mobile World Congress.
So, what's the official word on the show? It is:
That's one theory - but I didn't meet many people there who agreed with it.
This year, my various unofficial estimates of the size of the Barcelona cash cow - which feeds all those excellent projects inside the GSMA - all point to a financial meltdown. Specifically, where "official spokespeople" say "we were about 20 per cent down", my figures say at least 40 per cent. One source I trust told me the internal numbers he'd seen were 46 per cent down on last year.
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