By Valerie Coffey
With more than 3,000 exhibitors and 75,000 attendees, electronica Munich 2004 proved once again that this German venue is the ultimate trade show for electronics. Held November 9 – 12 at the New Munich Trade Fair Center, the every-other-year show had a total of 14 enormous exhibit halls from all over the world, including Europe, North America, and Asia. With two halls of nothing but connector companies, certainly no trade show in the United States beats electronica Munich for sheer volume of connector exhibitors. Trying to visit every connector company booth in four days was a rather athletic event, but alas, probably not enough to burn off the ubiquitous beer and Bavarian food.
 Hundreds of electronica Munich attendees used an on-site registration system the first day of the conference. |
The exhibit list in Halls B3 and B4 was a bit like a Who's Who of connector companies. President and CEO of ERNI Electronics (Adelberg, Germany), Andreas Scheck, spoke about the success of their modular MicroSpeed mezzanine connector system, which combines 10 Gbit/s speed and 1-mm pitch with a 5-mm circuit-board distance—for $7.50 per mated pair. The MicroSpeed module has been discovered by U.S. networking companies for blade-server applications, which, says Scheck, is a "big, big market in the future."
European distributors
Like many American companies, Delphi Connection Systems (Irvine, CA) was represented in the booth of their German distributor, Argenta Elektronik (Solingen, Germany), while their German counterpart, Delphi Deutschland GmbH (Wuppertal, Germany), co-exhibited with distributors Power & Signal Group GmbH (Hilden, Germany).
Molex (Lisle, IL) and FCI (Etters, PA), the number three and number two connector manufacturers in Europe, respectively, were missing from the connector halls completely. However, products from Molex Deutschland GmbH, Omron Europe BV, and Tyco/AMP could be found far away in Hall A5, distributed by RUTRONIK Elektronische. Products from FCI France and FCI Deutschland GmbH showed up in the booth of distributor Spoerle (Dreieich, Germany). In addition to appearing in distrubitors' booths, Tyco Electronics AMP GmbH exhibited their line of passive electromechanical components and active electronic components for wireless and fiberoptic applications at their large booth in one of the connector halls.
Beer in every booth
The tenor at electronica Munich 2004 was clear: it is the meeting place for the international electronics industry, for engineers and executives alike. According to a registrant survey performed by market-research company TNS Infratest, the trade show has demonstrated the optimism in the electronics industry: 85% of the exhibitors and attendees assess the market's future trend as "excellent to good." Could it be the beer in every booth?
An international mix among attendees significantly strengthened the quality of contacts this year, according to 42% of those surveyed. The percentage of trade show attendees from outside Germany rose 10% over 2002. Among the attendees at the show, 86% wield decision-making authority in their company, and 55% have an executive position.
Lee O'Toole, European marketing communications manager for Omron Electronic Components Europe, comments on this point: "The level of visitors and quality of sales leads has been excellent. The variety of visitors spans many countries making this a truly international show."
Gerhard Scharf, key-account manager at Sharp Microelectronics Europe, also emphasized this point: "The rise in the international participation was very noticeable, especially from Eastern Europe and Russia." The number of attendees from the United States rose significantly compared to electronica 2002.
The number of visitors from the field of industrial electronics also rose sharply. Their share increased from 39% in 2002 to 49% in 2004. Automotive electronics accounted for 11% of the attendees.
 Colorful booths fill the connection technology area in Hall B3 at electronica 2004. |
Among both exhibitors and attendees, electronica's sharpened focus on applications was very well received. Peter Hecktor, CEO of Data Modul AG underlined this fact: "I am very pleased with the intensification of applications. In my opinion, the automotive area is an important further development."
The "Automotive Electronics" user forum recorded significantly more attendees than two years ago—which is significant in light of the fact that automotive electronics is considered a growth market.
In spite of the scope and success of electronica Munich, the fledgling electronica USA show, held with the Embedded Systems conference March 30–April 1, 2004, in San Francisco, will not be continued. Trade fair organizer Messe München judged the 2004 show in San Francisco to be unsuccessful. (Perhaps it should have had more beer?) Interested parties will have to continue to travel to Munich every other year to see all of the world's connector companies (including American ones) in one place. The next electronica Munich event takes place November 14–17, 2006, at the New Munich Trade Fair Center.
