Chinese phones take on Apple and Samsung at Mobile World Congress 2025

Around this time of year, Barcelona becomes a massive big tech show-and-tell – and you can literally feel the future.

AI will underpin almost everything so get ready for human holographs beaming from your phone, quantum computing and robot butlers – along with big names like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and chess guru Garry Kasparov telling us how it is.

The Xiaomi SU7 electric car stole the show at last year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) and the company is raising the bar again with a global launch of the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra - the fastest electric four-door on the planet, going from 0-100kph in 1.98 seconds.

Oh and let's not forget Xiaomi makes phones too – they will also launch the Xiaomi 15 in Barcelona, likely on Sunday.

Rumors are we might also see the Xiaomi 15 Ultra with monster specs, a massive camera and a different design from the regular Xiaomi 15.

China rising in phone sales

Apple is always conspicuous by its absence at MWC. The California-based giant always tries to achieve degrees of separation from the rest of the industry and give the idea that it's in a league of its own - advertising by absence.

Contrast that to Chinese brands who always have a huge presence, with Huawei normally booking the most floorspace. And when you look at global smartphone trends, Chinese makers are increasingly occupying more space in the premium market too.

Last year 1.2 billion smartphones were sold worldwide, and Xiaomi saw their sales surge by 15 percent in 2024. Globally only Apple and Samsung, each with an 18 percent market share, sold more handsets than Xiaomi (rising to 14 percent). In China, Apple lost its top seller spot to Huawei and Vivo in 2024 - so what are Chinese manufacturers doing right?

CGTN spoke to Sihan Bo Chen, Head of China for GSMA, the company that owns the Mobile World Congress.

"It's exciting to see how Chinese brands are now genuinely competing with the giants like Apple and Samsung," she said. "Chinese brands are often perceived as offering good value for money and they always have AI integration, innovation, optimized performance.

"They don't just focus on phones but integrated tech like home and car, and strategic partnership and the ecosystems in China is helping them to grow. I think the AI boom is posed to drive substantial economic growth in China."

Innovating despite restrictions

Newcomer DeepSeek shook the AI world and showed that trade restrictions haven't slowed innovation in China.

Huawei is another example: when the first Trump administration hit the company with sanctions in 2019, Huawei was top of the world in 5G equipment and had a huge mobile phone market share.

That had an impact and the company struggled with restricted access to the latest microchips.

So what did Huawei do? It started making its own chips and in 2023 released a phone with a microchip far more advanced than global experts thought possible, leading to 46 million phone sales last year in China alone - 37 percent year-on-year growth.

In Barcelona, Huawei will showcase its Mate XT - the world's first tri-folding phone. While it may not be a massive bestseller given a price tag above $3,500, it proves the company can still make top tech.

Samsung and Nothing

Samsung always shows up in Barcelona – last year there was a first glimpse of the Samsung Galaxy Ring, enticingly entombed in 15-centimeter-thick display glass. This year, it could be the super-slim new flagship Galaxy S25 Edge phone drawing the crowds.

Onlookers may also be tempted to look at Nothing. Nothing Technology Limited is a London-based British manufacturer founded by Carl Pei, the co-founder of the Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus.

Nothing produces some very affordable phones that punch above their weight, and the company has already sent out invitations to the 'Phone (3a)' launch.

Expect more capable Android phones that are big on design and value while not being too heavy on the bank balance.

Nokia nostalgia

Among the new names is an old one: Nokia. Everyone's favourite nostalgia-phone maker – the 3310 'brick' was so iconic, the Finns made it a national emoji – is back at the MWC with more new phones.

These days Nokia is owned by HMD Global, the Finnish independent mobile phone manufacturer who sold the brand to Microsoft in 2014, then bought it back in 2016. Nokia's launch is on Sunday.

Growing Chinese tech titan Honor had a stellar 2024 with 12 percent year-on-year growth, shipping 15.6 million units. At last year's MWC, Honor launched both the Magic6 Pro and the Honor MagicBook Pro 16 laptop; the tease for this year's launch on Sunday mentions something called the 'Honor Alpha Plan', which will likely be some kind of AI product unveiling.

Last year Lenovo definitely raised a few eyebrows - in a good way - with its see-through laptop and bendy phone/bracelet, so there'll be plenty of anticipation around what it will bring to the table this year.

Mobile World Congress 2025

Under the official theme 'Converge Connect Create', MWC 2025 runs until Thursday March 6.

Apart from all the cool stuff like the dancing robots and autonomous flying cars, we'll hear a lot too about Generative AI, communications, and the democratization of internet and smartphone access, the Metaverse and 'Extended Reality' - an umbrella term for virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality - including exciting advances for gaming.

We'll hear discussions too about how AI guardrails can keep us safe from robots going rogue, cybersecurity, crypto, and so much more. Stay tuned to CGTN for MWC coverage and industry analysis.

https://www.mwcbarcelona.com/