Mobile World Congress: A Roundup of Roundups

Because you can never hear too much about the Mobile World Congress telecom show in Barcelona, Spain from the Street, herewith some wrap-ups from some folks who were there the last few days:

Nomura Equity Research’s Stuart Jeffrey writes that the biggest talk at the show was what Samsung Electronics‘s (005930KS) will offer up in the second half of this year. “Industry expectations appear high that Samsung will launch some differentiated designs for H2, in conjunction with some differentiated applications and services, that could see the vendor sustain its positive recent momentum,” he writes. He adds that some very different form factors are expected from Samsung, and “We believe that much of this differentiation is likely driven by Samsung�s use of a plastic-based, shatter proof, light and bendable plastic AMOLED screen in the Samsung S II among others.” There was a notable lack of phones running the 4.0 version of Google‘s (GOOG) Android software, he observes. What was shown was balky, moreover, with “sluggish” response to touch input.

Citigroup‘s Jim Suva writes that on Day 3, the big event was the intended push by Deutsche Telekom‘s (DTE) T-Mobile USA and AT&T (T) for Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Windows Phone devices, with “hero status and huge marketing” intended. Of his meeting with Research in Motion (RIMM), Suva writes that the “2.0” update to the PlayBook operating system “finally enabled native corporate email, calendar, and contacts (should have had this feature on initial launch in our opinion). Many investors were disappointed Blackberry Messenger (BBM) is not yet a native feature on the PlayBook.”

R.W. Baird‘s Will Power writes that “Long Term Evolution,” or LTE, wireless, “WiFi offloading,” mobile payments and the “continuing Android onslaught” were the main themes. Ericsson (ERIC) could be a long-term beneficiary of the LTE expansion, he writes. Power saw progress from HTC (2498TW): “We believe the HTC One repositions HTC at the top of the Android heap, which we believe should help HTC regain share, and perhaps lift shares in the near term. However, long-term differentiation concerns remain, an Android phenomenon.

Oppenheimer & Co.‘s Ittai Kidron writes that he was “incrementally more positive” on both Qualcomm (QCOM) and Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) as a result of the show, “with both seeing good design traction and/or share gains at Apple, Samsung and the Chinese suppliers.” He’s less confident in Nokia, however, “with our checks suggesting a challenging 1Q12 and a tougher and longer Windows transformation and rising pressures in the low-end.” He also notes that Cisco Systems (CSCO) is making gains at Juniper Networks‘s (JNPR) expense, with Cisco “seeing solid growth in its service provider routing business especially in core and wireless” versus Juniper “which saw a decline in routing revenues in Q4 ’11 driven by weakness in the U.S. service provider segment.”

Fin