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UPDATE: These 7 tech companies are today's 5G winners

Today 5:35 AM ET (MarketWatch)

From Cisco to Nokia, Mobile World Congress showed which companies are on top

Last year around this time, I shared my analysis of the 5G cellphone technology landscape (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-4-companies-will-be-the-big-early-winners-from-the-326-billion-push-to-5g-2018-03-07) and some of the expected leaders in 5G. One year later, 5G rollouts are under way and 5G devices should go mainstream in the first half of this year. This powerful new generation of mobile connectivity will transform our economy.

So in the wake of the giant Mobile World Congress trade show, I have challenged myself to pick the winners in seven categories: Data center OEM, 5G Edge strategy, 5G infrastructure chips, network transformation providers, device manufacturer, modem/IP suppliers and telco service provider.

Data center OEM: This one was close. While I felt DellEMC(DELL) had a very complete offering, Cisco's(CSCO) automation and orchestration offering for setup and configuration of 5G deployments was as compelling as they come. With volumes of small data centers being set up, the smart use of automation in the Cisco offering is going to be significantly decrease the time spent setting up 5G data centers, and this will be very attractive to cloud and telco service providers setting up 5G networks.

Infrastructure chips: The massive infrastructure investment needed will create a huge opportunity for the semiconductor industry, and I believe Intel(INTC) is the company best poised to take advantage of this opportunity. I believe its soon-to-launch Cascade Lake solutions, with its 48 cores, will be ideal to support the exponential data growth and new artificial intelligence, computing and storage demands that will coincide with the onset of 5G.

Network transformation provider: When it comes to end-to-end providers for 5G network transformation, there are only really two companies that can claim full end-to-end offerings. The first is Huawei, and the second is Nokia(NOK) (NOK) . With Huawei's woes in markets like the U.S. and Australia, where attempts are being made to ban it from consideration for 5G projects over concerns that the company is leveraging its infrastructure to engage in espionage (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-trying-to-ban-huawei-from-internet-networks-out-of-fear-of-snooping-2019-02-26). I believe it leaves Nokia in a really good position. Even without Huawei's problems, Nokia's 5G leadership appears compelling, and it should see a significant boost in the coming year.

Modem/IP supplier: Qualcomm(QCOM) had a terrific showing at Mobile World Congress. The breadth of its announcements was tremendous, and when it comes to building a 5G modem that will power the premium devices of the 5G era, I'm comfortable saying the consensus is that Qualcomm's modems will be the de facto standard.

Edge infrastructure supplier: Hewlett Packard Enterprise(HPE) has been building specific hardware to support the boom at the edge for the past few years. (Edge computing is all about processing data closer to where it is being created to improve the speed that data is turned into insights.) While earlier iterations were more designed with manufacturing and rugged industrial environments in mind, the launch of the EdgeLine 8000 server at Mobile World Congress gives HPE a noteworthy competitive advantage in the telco service provider space.

More on 5G:How 5G technology will revolutionize health care

Device manufacturer: Samsung(005930.SE) has certainly had its challenges in the wake of its exploding battery issues in 2017 with the Galaxy Note 7, but when it comes to the first 5G Premium devices, the Galaxy S10 is a stunner. Beautiful design, with next-generation biometric technology and terrific battery life. A clear winner, even if Samsung's foldable device (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/samsung-set-to-release-smartphone-with-a-foldable-screen-2019-02-20) drew more media attention.