Last week was my first visit to Barcelona and the sprawling MWC event. Definitely larger scale compared the events I usually attend, and was only able to take in a fraction of the action. Everything I saw was interesting, and would have to go a few more times to capture the bigger picture, so my writeup here just covers what I could actually take in.

I’ll start with transparency, as I was hosted by Infobip, and much of my time was spent interviewing their executives and customers. Being their 20th anniversary, they had several initiatives going with analysts, journalists and influencers, so I’m not the only voice covering MWC in their orbit. Before reviewing my Infobip highlights, I’ll share some general takeaways.

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MWC Overall

As the name implies, this is a very global event, where everyone on hand is trying to build something new. Dozens of countries had their own booths touting the virtues of their markets and their leading vendors in the mobile communications space. This is a trillion-dollar market, so it’s not surprising to see all these countries vying for their piece of the pie.

A timely undercurrent was the emphasis on digital and economic sovereignty, especially from EU nationals. There are many tensions between the US approach to AI and elsewhere, along with the associated concerns about Big Tech wielding so much influence. Whereas traditional, landline telecom has a long history of being regulated, mobility is much less so, and the need to innovate is central for survival.

Contrasting the EU markets is the growing prominence of Asian players – both vendors and carriers. The presence of giants like Samsung, Huawei, ZTE and China Telecom was impossible to miss. Countering that was the usual group of Western giants – Ericsson, Nokia, Cisco, Qualcomm, along with the new players, some of whom are having an outsized influence on the evolution of wireless networks, such as Nvidia. This is a complex market for sure, and I’ll have more to say about this in follow-on writeups. Time to talk about Infobip.

Infobip – Having Their Moment

Twenty years is a long time for tech companies, and the company has come a long way. I’ve been following them for some time, and will say they made the most of their moment at MWC26. Their booth alone made a statement, and kudos for whoever designed this. It certainly drew great traffic – and it didn’t hurt having an F1 car on display – that’s long been a tactic among tech vendors, especially in the EU where F1 racing is very popular.

Let’s get past the cosmetics, and talk about what stood out for me as an analyst. First, was the team – their leadership deeply understands the market opportunity that Infobip is addressing. Although based in Croatia, Infobip is globally recognized as a CPaaS vendor, and recommended by leading industry analyst firms. The company has a solid marketing strategy, encompassing different tactics focused on demonstrating its product stack, and real-life use cases of its technology being successfully applied. That's why people like me were there to help spread the word about their story.

Infobip on the Big Stage

I’ll start by sharing highlights from two sessions I tracked where Infobip was on stage rather than speaking with me at the booth.

First was a fireside chat format with Infobip’s Chief Innovation Officer, Kreso Zmak and Josh Pepper, Head of Product, RCS for Business at Google. Concerns about Big Tech aside, this showcased a promising partnership to show the value of RCS to drive brand engagement and new revenues. 

With Google and Apple both recently opening up to RCS, the mass-market potential for multimodal messaging on mobile devices becomes much more real. This only works, however, with platforms like Infobip that leverage AI to make every interaction personalized, and seamless by taking the consumer from search to purchase all in the same RCS session. 

Aside from consumers being more likely to buy with a frictionless experience from Infobip, being Google Verified means they will have trust – with the brand, with the messaging, and with the RCS channel. This is the essence of what makes P2A – Person to Application – so effective, and a better ROI than the more widely-used A2P model, where the brand sends messages to a broad audience, but with very low levels of engagement.

Second was Infobip’s participation on a longer session about AI and fan engagement for sports and entertainment. This focus is very much in my comfort zone, and the possibilities are literally game-changing. I’ll need a separate writeup to unpack this, and will just touch on the conversation between Ervin Jagatic of Infobip, and Michael Heath from TGR Haas F1 Team. 

Are you enjoying the content so far?

The key issue here is that only a fraction of F1’s massive fan base can ever attend a race event in person. While most will watch races on television, fans can only be passive viewers. Partnering with Infobip, TGR Haas F1 Team is now able to bring fans into the live experience with apps to follow the races in real time, but also interact with other fans as well as the racing teams. Not only does drive fan loyalty, but creates new revenue opportunities from fans who want to show support for their favorite racing teams.

My Interview Highlights

I conducted several 1:1 interviews with customers and partners, each of which tells a side of the Infobip story. All of these were posted to my LinkedIn feed during the event, and were widely re-posted by others. I welcome you to watch any or all of these, and if you don’t follow me there, here’s the link to my feed. The following are three highlights that I think you’ll find interesting.

  1. Kreso Zmak, Chief Innovation Officer, Infobip. We talked about what his role entails, but also how they have addressed customer challenges over the past 20 years. Building on that, we discussed how the company plans to innovate for the next 20 years.
  2. Jana Jambrešić, Conversational AI Specialist, Infobip. She walked me through a short demo for how Infobip is using AI agents to identify and mitigate fraud in the contact center. This can only be done at scale and in real time with AI, and when it’s done right, customer experience – CX – will also improve. Just as important, Infobip’s capabilities help minimize financial loss both for customers and the brand.
  3. Veselin Vukovic, Chief Alliances Officer, Infobip. No vendor has all the pieces, and in this interview, we talked about the importance of Infobip’s alliances and partner network. Having topped 1,000 partners in 2024, Veselin explained how they manage all of them, and how they help carriers co-create to develop new services and revenue streams.

Final Thoughts

There is much more to talk about, both for Infobip and MWC overall. Based on what I saw, it’s clear that Infobip is on the leading edge of messaging and providing carriers with new and better ways to monetize their offerings. This space is rife with innovation, for wireless network infrastructure, as well as nextgen subscriber services. I’ve been writing about this under the broader trend of migration from telco to techco, and for both, there was plenty on hand at MWC26.