CeBIT, the annual trade fair devoted to computers and communication, is struggling to halt a sharp decline in exhibitor numbers which many observers say is evidence that the sector is losing some mystique and becoming as familiar as the automobile industry.
CeBIT's glory days were a decade ago, during the scramble by start- up companies to win attention for gadgets and software that most customers had never heard of and did not yet know they needed.
Today, consumers worldwide have a strong sense of needing flat-panel TVs, nifty mobile phones and MP3 players, and advertising and branding are a key part of the business.
UK carmaker Jaguar dreamed up a slogan, "grace, pace and space," which neatly sums up the issues that most of the automotive industry uses to sell its wares. The technology inside only interests a minority of buyers.
Consumer electronics companies have made a similar transition, selling their products by what they do, not by the obscure software and chips inside the case. Many of those companies no longer feel comfortable at a technology fair like CeBIT.
CeBIT organizers admit that this year's fair will be 10 percent smaller than last year's in space terms, mainly because of the absence of big multinationals that prefer to reach out directly to their retailers and shoppers.
Smaller exhibitors who need contact with trade buyers have stayed and this year's CeBIT, from Thursday through March 21, will have 6,000 exhibitors, only a slight fall in absolute numbers, say the organizers, the Deutsche Messe company in Hannover, Germany.
Notable stayaways this year include mobile handset manufacturers Nokia Oyj and Motorola Inc.
Since the end of the dot-com boom in 2001, it has been death by a thousand cuts for the trade show, which used to boast that it was bigger than anything the US or Asia had to offer.
At its peak in 2001, CeBIT had 8,100 exhibitors, who took up 431,000m2 of space and 840,000 visitors. Space sold this year totals 280,000m2.
Lenovo Group Ltd (
To stop the rot, organizers aim to shorten CeBIT next year to six days and make the fair more rewarding for business buyers and the thousands of European and Asian electronics companies that use the event to make contact with new customers in Europe.
The strategy was developed too late for any changes to be possible at this year's fair.
Weak growth in Europe has been blamed for some of the decline, with manufacturers living off slender mark-ups and under pressure to scrap non-essential spending for a prestigious trade-fair presence.
From next year, changes are to be made at the fair to make it more "professional," though Deutsche Messe executive Sven-Michael Prueser said this did not mean CeBIT was trying to exclude the general public.
Analysts say the focus on professionals rather than consumers amounts to a reluctant acceptance that the provincial city of Hannover cannot compete with the lure of Germany's top consumer-electronics show, the annual IFA in Berlin.
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