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IFA 2010 sets the pace for product premieres and for what will reach global markets (11/6/2010)

Global players in the consumer-electronics industry have shifted their focus to Europe, with over 500 million high-income consumers, and to IFA, which inspires trends and powers volume sales at the right time for year-end holiday sales. In the European market, IFA excels as the world's largest CE trade show. It's the stage that companies use to reach global media and buyers - and it is the venue that manufacturers and retailers leverage to introduce new technologies to the world.

For example, the major companies introduced one-inch-and-thinner flat panel TVs to the press and public at IFA 2008 - in September 2008, four months before exhibiting the same TVs for the first time globally. One year later, the first 3D TVs were introduced at IFA 2009 - again in September, again four months before rolling out to hype and hope to the rest of the world.

What's coming in 2011?

Journalists and industry insiders who want a four-month head start will make the trip to Berlin for IFA, 3-8 September 2010.

IFA sets a one-of-a-kind standard that combines innovation and the technology of tomorrow with a global sales platform for the consumer electronics and home appliance industries. The first IFA was held in 1924. Attendees marvelled at early vacuum tube and radio receivers. Today, IFA is the largest consumer electronics trade show on the planet, with a long history of world premieres:

* 1930s: World's first car radio; the "Volksempfanger E1" table-top radio; affordable television; the first color TV pictures. And Albert Einstein keynoted IFA 1930.

* 1950s/1960s: First FM receivers; the first wireless TV remotes; emergence of larger TV sets with up to 43 cm picture tubes.

* 1970s: The first VCR system for the home; the first three-dimensional quadrophonic acoustics; the German Post Office introduces the BTX interactive videotext system - precursor to the Internet - in 1977, Philips and Sony preview the first CD player prototype, two years before mass production.

* 1980s: TV receiver with digital signal processing; the first HDTV demonstrations; Video Programming System (VPS); satellite tuner; DAT recorders; Radio Data System (RDS); MOD-recorder.

* 1990s: Digital Compact Cassette (DCC); Mini-Disc; re-recordable CD; Photo CD; video coding standards "Show View" and "Voice Commander"; TV/PC-combinations; Dolby Surround systems; flat-panel displays; digital TV sets; TV picture phones; cell phones with Internet access.

* 2000s: Multimedia Home Platform (MHP); 29-inch LCD widescreen TV with Internet access; DVD recorder; Bluetooth; e-paper; networked consumer electronics; mobile TV; ultra-thin TV; 3D TV.

www.ifa-berlin.de