14 DAY TRIAL // CeBIT is the world's largest trade fair showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions and until recently the fair was extremely popular, exceeding all audience expectations time and time again. But now it looks like more than a couple major exhibitors are giving CeBIT up.
Starting with next year, the show will be one day shorter than in the previous years due to the cancellations from several important exhibitors such as Nokia and Motorola.
The smaller number of exhibitors has forced the organizers of the show to re-think the price structure and orientate themselves more clearly towards trade visitors.
According to Ernst Raue, one of the fair's managers, exhibitors complained about high costs, and unclear concept and no real sense that the fair was more for trade visitors than for consumers.
CeBIT has been facing some serious competition from German annual consumer-electronics show IFA, which has become increasingly popular throughout the past period of time.
Most Technology companies have decided to announce their products in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year, and mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia and Motorola who have already showed the world their products at CES and will be doing the same at the 3GSM event seem to have little interest for attending CeBIT anymore. Few exhibitors, such as Samsung have remained committed to CeBIT.
Out of the 6,262 exhibitors that have attended in 2006, CeBIT is expecting approximately 6,000 this year. Visitors don't seem to be as interested in the show either, visitor numbers having declined for five years in a row. In 2006, the show attracted 450,000 people which is 6 percent less than the visitor number recorded a year before. This year, CeBIT will be held between 15-21 March in Hannover.