As the wireless industry evolves, so do the major trade shows that draw all the key companies and players. There was lots of speculation leading up to last week’s 2010 Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, Spain. Many observers thought the show would suffer because of its proximity to the Chinese New Year, which was Feb. 14th, just one day before the conference started.

If the Chinese New Year did cause Asian firms to reduce the number of employees attending the show, it was not readily apparent. And the GSMA is reporting strong attendance figures. Yesterday the firm said there were 49,000 attendees (this includes delegates, exhibitors, contractors and the media) from 200 countries at the event. In addition, 54 percent of those attendees were C-level executives and 2,800 were CEOs.

Read more here.