High-potential peak with positive signals

Traditionally, the Electronica trade show serves as a presentation platform for the industry, especially for electronics components, systems and applications. Besides, it is also often the first point to begin with transfer of expertise from one company to another. User forums and conferences help to provide an initial contact for this. Close cooperation with the industry and its associations worldwide are other pieces of the network. All these end up in a continuing development of the concept of this trade show, as their architects underline in unison. Klaus Dittrich. “It’s a real business summit appealing to many top shots from the global electronics industry”.

Let’s have a view on just some figures to illustrate what the organizers (Munich International Trade Fairs, MMI) mean when they are talking about a “world-leading trade show”. Electronica is structured, as Thomas Rehbein (deputy head of the business unit new Technologies) explained, into 16 exhibition areas, arranged in 14 halls with a total of 160,000sqm of total exhibition area. For this year, he and the managing director are expecting approximately 3,000 exhibitors and 75,000 visitors from the electronics industry. Due to the expansion of the exhibition to include user forums and congresses in the adjacent Munich International Congress Center (ICM), Electronica is taking a forward-looking approach by covering areas of high interest with particularly massive potential for growth.

The Electronica will present the entire spectrum of electronics and its most promising areas of applications, providing a wide-ranging overview of the market and industry. From the exhibitor side, a total of 352 companies attend this year from Taiwan, 332 from the USA, 240 from Great Britain, 132 from China and 123 from Italy, just to name the biggest numbers. About 35% of the visitors will come from abroad, from a total of more than 60 countries. They are from all areas of technology and business including technical specialists for design as well as managers and high-level executives. These are the business areas (and main areas of interest) were the visitors two years ago have come from: industrial electronics (39%), telecommunications (15%), automotive electronics (12%), all areas of consumer and entertainment electronics (13%), and medical device electronics (4%). As a pure B2B event, Electronica sees highly qualified visitors, 91% mark themselves as decision makers, and more than 20% belong to their company’s top management.

This year, one new aspect is Electronica’s offering of informative events on high-growth potential application areas and a comprehensive program for the transfer of knowledge by the formation of arenas, forums and congresses all together. User forums with an exhibition area and a lecture podium will concentrate on automotive electronics, wireless communications and MEMS (microelectronic mechanical systems). Also, interdisciplinary programs of presentation are being offered, for embedded technologies and for the EMS (electronics manufacturing services) companies and their task. The congress agenda as part of Electronica includes three events: Embedded in Munich Conference with the Embedded Systems Conference, Using Intelligent Software Management for Error-Free Automotive Electronics, and the Wireless Congress 2004: Systems & Applications. The first-day round table discussion of CEOs runs under the title “Supply Chain Management – Challenges for the Global Electronic Industry”.

Attendees can now pre-register via internet at the Electronica website. This way they save time, especially during the peak time in the morning, and also can save 20% on the ticket price by pre-purchasing their tickets. Following the on-line registration, visitors with guest tickets or who register themselves via the web site will receive an e-mail containing a direct link to their personal on-line ticket voucher which can then be printed out and taken to the show. These participants need only follow the signs for pre-registered visitors in the entrance area, and scan in the voucher barcode, to receive their ticket printout.

“With its clear and well-structured exhibition area and the other activities”, as managing director Dittrich states, “Electronica reflects the industry’s market trends and application areas in an ideal manner. That is just one of the reasons why our trade show is the electronics industry’s internationally respected business event, and why it is considered the industry’s bi-annual summit”. Gerhard B. Wolski

EPP EUROPE 412

According to market researchers, the world market for electronic components grew by 11.6% to $305.2bn in 2003. For 2004, predictions call for a gain of 15%, but next year will be probably flat. In Europe, the ten countries that have just recently joined the EU show also strong semiconductor consumption. These countries maintain a 9%-share of the total European market (this year about $402bn). And the trend is moving upward. The demand for automotive electronics is continuing a pattern of growth. Frost & Sullivan expects the share (value) of electronic components in motor vehicles to go from 25 to 40% over the next years. This demand also has a positive effect on the market for microelectronic mechanical systems. Their world market will reach a volume of $5.7bn in 2005. The robust potential for wireless technologies is evident, for example, by the worldwide sales of components used in WLAN configurations semiconductors: The IDC analysts expect this figure to grow from $600m in 2002 to 1.1bn by 2007.