MWC 2016 | The top 10 talked about brands of this year's Mobile World Congress

Global PR agency Hotwire has analyzed and compiled tweets relating to this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Deputy Managing Director of Hotwire UK Matt Cross has observed that while emerging technologies stole the show at last year's conference, those same products have fallen by the wayside as of MWC 2016. Last year's Huawei Watch and the HTC RE Grip made a big splash in the wearables department and were met with enthusiasm at CES 2016, but appear to have fallen behind VR and 5G technologies in terms of buzz and word-of-mouth.

Another unexpected trend is Xiaomi, who managed to jump to fifth place in social media attention ahead of Lenovo and HTC (Lenovo is listed twice). Companies like Apple and Microsoft did not make the top 10 list at all. Apple's presence at MWC is usually minimal at best while Microsoft already revealed its flagship Lumia 950 series late last year.

According to Cross, Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi will slowly move towards Western markets and offer more cost competitive models than the competition. This can cause a reshuffling in the smartphone market if Xiaomi can play its cards right.

MWC 2016 Social Media Statistics according to Hotwire:

Total MWC 2016 Tweets: 405,132

Top 10 Trends of MWC 2016:

1. Samsung Galaxy S7/Edge: 35,360
2. LG G5: 34,496
3. Xperia: 22,409
4. Zuckerberg: 16,074
5. IoT: 14,487
6. VR: 13,941
7. 5G: 12,650
8. 360: 10,885
9. Windows: 9,162
10. Tablet: 8,661

Top 10 brands of MWC 2016:

1. LG: 44,482
2. Samsung: 40,873
3. Sony: 21,572
4. Huawei: 15,556
5. Xiaomi: 12,819
6. Lenovo: 13,042
7. HTC: 11,483
8. Android: 11,723
9. Lenovo: 9,629
10. Qualcomm: 8,736

Top 10 brands of MWC 2015 (for comparison):

1. HTC: 21,129
2. Samsung: 20,519
3. Huawei: 16,107
4. Sony: 14,343
5. Microsoft: 11,654
6. Android: 11,108
7. Lenovo: 8,637
8. Blackberry: 5,799
9. Apple: 3,155
10. Qualcomm: 2,919

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