IFA, short for International Funkausstellung, is an annual event held in the German capital, Berlin, every September. It brings together the world’s biggest consumer electronics and home appliances brands and provides them with a platform to showcase their latest products and innovations.
Its current annual cycle format has been in place for over a decade. In that time, the trade show has been at the forefront of the birth of the mobile age with device makers turning to it to showcase their devices meant to capture the market’s imagination for the second half of the year. As such, there has been an increasing need to cater to these brands and their global fans that nowadays are always looking forward to the next product release cycles whose announcements are made at IFA every year.
To cater for them, the show is getting a huge makeover this year.
Messe Berlin and gfu, the organizers of the annual trade show, are debuting two new products that will help make this possible: IFA NEXT and IFA Global Markets. The former will cater for startups, research labs and companies “at the edge of innovation” at the venue where keynotes, like Samsung’s Unpacked series, and conferences have traditionally been held over the years. The latter, which will be of interest to most of us as well, is meant to offer even better support for the full end-to-end supply chain, from component manufacturers to OEMs and ODMs.
“We are structuring IFA 2017 to focus on brands and innovation – and define a new platform for companies that design, manufacture and sell components – the “building blocks” of future consumer electronics and home appliances,” said Messe Berlin CEO Dr Christian Göke while making the announcement at the IFA Global Press Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
In the year 2015, IFA managed to attract over 240,000 visitors and over 1,600 exhibitors.
The annual event is what many of us have come to associate with the release of the latest Android devices meant to hit the market just in time to compete with the new Apple iPhone which traditionally arrives in October.
This year’s show will run from 1st to 6th September and it will be the venue for one of the largest global gatherings of Android enthusiasts and developers, Droidcon.
