Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, is this year’s host of over 300 technology and business journalists, writers and bloggers from over 50 countries around the world who have descended on the city for the annual IFA Global Press Conference.
The event, organised by Messe Berlin and currently in its 11th year, is the pre-cursor to the world’s largest consumer electronics trade show, IFA, which takes place annually in the German capital, Berlin.
It is at IFA that the Android world, which is of main interest to us, was forever changed with Samsung turning to its own “Unpacked” launch events at the trade show to introduce into the market its now famous Galaxy Note phablet lineup.
This year, Samsung is one of the several companies that have a direct bearing on us as Android enthusiasts, that has joined the partners’/sponsors list for the event. Since it is the top Android smartphone maker in the world according to the company’s own internal data as well as that of third-party market research firms such as GfK which will also be sharing several interesting findings and insights at IFA GPC 2017, we can’t wait to hear what the company has in store for us with one of its vice presidents set to speak at the event’s industry power briefings which take place a day before the press conference itself on Saturday, April 22nd.
Philips, which uses Android TV on its television sets and Hisense, also a maker of Android TVs and Android mobile devices (smart watches, smartphones etc) and a regular of the IFA GPC is a partner, once again.
Porsche Design, which counts one new Android device maker, BlackBerry, as a former partner and is fresh from assisting yet another top Android device maker, China-based Huawei, to make the Porsche Design Huawei Mate 9, is another partner.
Several members of the tech press from 7 African countries are attending the 2-day event. The African countries represented at the event are Algeria, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.
The conference has previously been held in various European cities like Dubrovnik, Croatia (2012), Sardinia, Italy (2013), Belek, Turkey (2014) and Valleta, Malta (2015). Last year was a rare exception as the conference was held outside Europe for the first time ever, in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China, where the IFA organisers were unveiling the Asian-market targeted Consumer Electronics (CE) China.
Be sure to catch any Android-related announcements and developments from Lisbon here as we catch up with the latest in the industry and what we can look forward to at IFA come September.
