IFA 2019 again with record figures

IFA Next, IFA’s innovation hub, also set new records with more start-ups and innovation leaders than ever spread across two halls, alongside research institutes from countries like Germany, Japan and Korea. This year, IFA Next hosted Japan as its first Global Innovation Partner country. The Japan pavilion was showcasing new ideas and innovations for how machines and humans can interact in future.

“As an important driving force for trade and industry and the world’s most important platform for consumer electronics and home appliances, IFA 2019 met the high expectations,” commented Hans-Joachim Kamp, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of IFA organizer gfu Consumer & Home Electronics. “With its large number of innovations, it has a positive influence on the mood in the international markets. With an unexpectedly stable high order volume in regard to the current market situation, the foundation was laid for a successful year-end business.”

“We are satisfied with the results of IFA 2019,” added Dr. Reinhard Zinkann, Chairman of the ZVEI. “Accordingly, the household appliance industry is optimistic about the future. This year too, IFA has strengthened its position as the world’s significant trade show for home appliances and made a positive contribution to the market development.”

In the opinion of Dr. Christian Göke, CEO of Messe Berlin, IFA had once again shown the “power of co-innovation, where inventors in different sectors and industries inspire each other.” He warned that trade wars, trade barriers and political barriers would harm consumers not just by making products more expensive, but by slowing down innovation itself. Picking up a theme developed in one of IFA’s most famous keynotes, by Albert Einstein in 1930, Göke said that in today’s day and age Einstein would probably “call on the best and the brightest minds in the world, whoever they are, and wherever they live, whichever country they call their home, to pool their knowledge and co-innovate to create a better world.”

IFA Executive Director Jens Heithecker was hugely impressed by the level of innovation: “As the number of exhibitors has grown, so did the quality and quantity of innovations as well as the number of product premieres that were shown here in Berlin for the first time.”

The global media attendance has gone up yet again; the journalists coming to Berlin work for media organisations covering 160 countries around the world. This shows how important IFA is in the calendar for technology and lifestyle journalists. This year, IFA attracted some 2.800 international journalists from around the world.