At MWC Shanghai 2025 – themed “Converge, Connect, Create” – key trends such as the rise of the low-altitude economy, the global push of Chinese IoT firms, and next-gen device innovation took center stage. These developments reflect the event’s core pillars, highlighting how intelligent connectivity and infrastructure evolution are driving the next phase of industrial transformation.

Chinese IoT Enterprises Accelerating the Push Toward Overseas Markets

Facing intense price competition and thinning margins at home, Chinese IoT players are accelerating international expansion. Since 2025, overseas markets have moved to the top of the strategic agenda for many domestic firms, particularly those in smart home, industrial automation, and edge connectivity segments.

However, the road to globalization is complex. Many companies are still grappling with insufficient understanding of foreign market demands, navigating compliance-heavy certification processes, and building local channel and service capabilities – challenges that often delay time-to-market.

Given the fragmented nature of the IoT industry and the relatively small scale of individual players, no single firm can tackle these barriers alone. Consequently, industry associations are gaining momentum, providing shared resources, cross-border intelligence, and joint go-to-market frameworks to help members scale beyond China more effectively.

Low-Altitude Economy: From Showcases to Scalable Scenarios

A growing number of companies are bringing solutions to the low-altitude economy space, as urban air mobility (UAM), industrial drones, and policy-ready platforms begin to converge. Across the show floor, players demonstrated a shift from conceptual models to deployment-ready systems, aimed at unlocking commercial and public-sector opportunities.

AUTOFLIGHT demonstrated its eVTOL prototype designed for short-range urban transport. The vehicle supports a range of 200 kilometers, a cruising speed of 200 km/h, and can carry up to five passengers. This marks a notable step forward toward scalable, low-altitude passenger services.

Meanwhile, Haige Communication introduced a high-payload drone for detection and inspection tasks. With a 75kg payload capacity and 75-minute flight time, it is already deployed in sectors such as traffic monitoring, electric grid patrol, and emergency rescue – highlighting clear industrial use cases for drone technology.

A recurring theme across these deployments was the alignment between regulatory frameworks and commercial innovation. Companies emphasized that mutual adaptation between policies and tech platforms is becoming essential to ensure orderly, large-scale growth in the low-altitude ecosystem.

Building Scalable IoT: From eSIM Standardization to Satellite Integration

As IoT deployments move from pilot to production scale, seamless and secure global connectivity is emerging as a critical enabler – especially for connected cars, industrial systems, and cross-border logistics.

The GSMA’s IoT eSIM SGP.32 standard is at the center of this shift. Designed to streamline onboarding and compliance, the new specification supports simplified provisioning for devices requiring international mobility. For connected vehicles and multi-region applications, it represents a major step forward in reducing deployment friction.

At the same time, satellite and non-terrestrial networks (NTN) are filling critical coverage gaps in rural, maritime, and underserved areas. Players like Skylo are rolling out standards-based satellite IoT solutions to provide reliable and scalable connectivity. These deployments are especially relevant for sectors such as agriculture, logistics, and remote infrastructure monitoring – where terrestrial coverage remains inconsistent.

Together, these advances reflect a maturing IoT infrastructure that blends terrestrial and satellite connectivity, anchored by open standards and ecosystem alignment.

Huawei Reinvents Form Factors Across Device Categories

Huawei continues to push boundaries in intelligent hardware design, bringing new form factors across laptops, smartphones, and wearables to the forefront of MWC Shanghai.

The MateBook Fold, a foldable laptop, was a key highlight. The device transforms from a compact 13-inch laptop into a full 18-inch tablet. Despite the mechanical complexity, it maintains a slim and lightweight profile, combining productivity and entertainment in a hybrid user experience.

In smartphones, the Huawei Pura X introduces a fresh clamshell format with a wider external display, allowing users to manage notifications, calls, and apps without unfolding the device. Its shorter vertical form also enhances portability and one-handed usability, appealing to on-the-go consumers.

On the wrist, the Huawei Watch Ultimate combines premium aesthetics with rugged durability. Featuring a refined metal design and a ceramic bezel, the smartwatch is not only visually elevated but also engineered for tough environments, including water-based activities like scuba diving. The device is a clear indicator of Huawei’s intent to merge luxury design with high-performance outdoor capabilities.

Key Takeaways:

• As expected, AI was everywhere from network infrastructure vendors such as Huawei, ZTE, to operators including China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom. Device players such as HONOR, ZTE nubia, Huawei, Moto, and Lenovo were also present, along with module vendors including MeiG, Quectel, Fibocom, and China Mobile. Software vendors such as iFlytek and Ultrapower also presented solutions from edge to cloud.
• The key AI innovations were around cloud to network to devices synergy bringing automation and intelligence. For example, AI RAN to Agentic AI network orchestration from Huawei and ZTE, Cloud AI phone from China Unicom, and Cloud AI Smart Agent Home box TongTong from Huawei+China Unicom, AI Box for enterprises from Quectel and so forth.
• 5G Advanced was another big theme from Huawei, ZTE and all the three Chinese operators with broader deployment, use cases and monetization, e.g. Uplink Video Streaming, low-latency gaming, throughput boosts, low-altitude drones, types experience-based models, apart from Intelligence-based costs savings from newer 5G-A radios, antennas, and more.
• There was lots of excitement around eSIM and the potential opening of eSIM for smartphones in China this year. A dedicated eSIM summit is expected this year featuring key stakeholders Kigen, RedteaMobile, Sony, Tongxin Micro, Valid, ST Micro and telcos. Single SKU for eSIM thanks to SGP.32 to standalone eSIM chips.