MWC 2016 has attracted over 100,000 visitors on the first day of opening on February 23. As usual, MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute) has analysts attending the event to closely observe the latest IT trends and provide their first-hand observations.

VR Headset: Following CES 2016, MWC 2016 has become another best venue for smartphone and network equipment manufacturers to demonstrate their VR headsets, including Samsung, LG, Sony, and HTC, just to name a few. MIC expects more smartphone manufacturers to set foot into this arena. What is noteworthy is the appearance of Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Samsung's press conference on February 22, commenting that VR will be a next big thing and all users will be able to watch 360 degree videos uploaded to Facebook clearly with a VR headset soon.

5G: Network equipment manufacturers such as Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei have demonstrated a lot of prototypes supporting 5G and IoT with an aim to tap the growing needs for 5G services.

Latest announcements from leading companies are as follows.

Samsung: Samsung, as anticipated, unveiled its new phones, Samsung S7 and S7 Edge, one day prior to MWC 2016. Similar to S6 Edge, S7 Edge has a curved screen, featuring a 5.5-inch HD AMOLED screen, 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 820 or self-developed Exynos CPU, along with 3,600mAh battery that supports wireless charging.

Huawei: Another area of focus is Mate 8, Huawei's first 2-in-1 tablet, which is similar to Microsoft Surface. The Huawei Mate 8 embraces Windows 10 OS instead of Android OS, a 12-inch 4K screen and ultra-thin aluminum body.

LG: LG also released its latest model, G5, and it also sports Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 CPU and a 5.3-inch 4K HD screen that support a 130 degree wide-angle viewing. Launched alongside the LG G5 was the Hi-Fi Plus player which supports 32-bit 384 KHz high quality audio playback.