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August 31, 2007

Preview – Internationale Funkausstellung: Big screens show the way at IFA trade show

Miss IFA with a flat-screen TV, Photo: IFA

The IFA consumer-electronics trade fair opening this Friday in Berlin claims to be the world's biggest show of televisions, camcorders, pocket communications and other entertainment equipment.

The organizers of the annual Tokyo and Las Vegas consumer electronics shows might beg to differ, but there is no doubt the August 31 to September 5 event is a trend-setter for Christmas shopping worldwide.

New products released at the fair are likely to reach retailers' shelves around November.

IFA organizers said earlier this month that 1,170 exhibitors, many of them top names, had booked space for the six day show at the fairgrounds on Berlin's west side. The companies hail from 32 nations. The IFA traces its history all the way back to 1924. The fair's website features a photo of Nobel physics laureate Albert Einstein helping open the 1930 show. Berlin's iconic Funkturm, or Radio Tower, was erected for the third fair in 1926.

In those days, the main consumer-electronics products were bulky radios the size of a cabin-trunk. Music came out of horns from shellac phonograph records.

Soccer Sells

Today, the sharp growth in consumer electronics sales in Europe, North America and other markets has been driven for the past four years by the lure of big, flat-panel screens.

In Europe's biggest single market, Germany, the industry had a bumper year in 2006 thanks to the appeal of TV coverage of the football World Cup, and was expecting 2007 to be slower after a hike in a retail sales tax.

However the newest full-year sales forecast suggests no shrinkage in consumer-electronics spending.

Strong Consumer Spending on Electronics

Industry group BITKOM, representing manufacturers and importers, said on Monday that a commissioned survey showed 2007 German sales would add up to 13.1 billion euro (17.7 billion dollars), an annual gain of 3 per cent.
This year's space bookings at IFA mark a record. The fair's chief executive, Christian Goeke, says stand rentals have increased 10 per cent in space terms from one year ago and are ahead of 2005, the last record year. (TWIG, dpa)

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