This year CeBIT changed its format a little bit: instead of focusing on personal technology and consumers, this year’s show was provided much more opportunities for business-to-business services and companies. Moreover, Deutsche Messe shrunk the duration of the show to six days and ensured that the first four days of the show are business days, which means that the pavilions were not crowded by consumers, unlike in previous years.

Rumours about intentions of certain large companies – such as Asustek Computer, Gigabyte Technology and Samsung Electronics – not to attend the show also proved to be incorrect. Nonetheless, the number of exhibitors actually decreased: last year there were 6153 exhibitors from 77 different countries, whereas this year 5845 exhibitors from 77 countries showed up at the world’s largest computer trade fair.

Thanks to format change and some other factors, attendance was up 3% over the previous year, totaling 495 thousand with over 100 thousand coming from abroad.

But apart from the crowds of youngsters looking for freebies, there are more challenges that not only CeBIT, but all the other trade-shows too have to face. In the extremely competitive market environment many companies tend to unveil new products at the time they can physically release them, not at large exhibitions. As a consequence, trade fairs are no longer new technology Meccas for technology enthusiasts, which reduces their media coverage and interest among technology companies.