It was business as usual at BroadcastAsia2009 and CommunicAsia2009 this week as 54,354 attendees congregated at Asia’s largest media and infocomm trade event. Of the total number of attendees, 49% came from outside of Singapore, hailing from about 100 countries and regions across Asia-Pacific, Europe, US and the Middle-East.
Spanning 58,000 square metres, the exhibitions featured 1,923 exhibiting companies from 60 countries and regions. The shows saw a total of 34 group pavilions, with countries like Belgium, Brunei Darussalam and Vietnam participating for the very first time.
Exhibitors were pleased with the event, citing the opportunity to network and discuss business deals with high quality visitors as the key reason. “BroadcastAsia2009 and CommunicAsia2009 is clearly the most important platform in the Asia Pacific region for the industry to launch products, make announcements and network. We are encouraged by the positive feedback from exhibitors. 80 per cent of exhibitors have already indicated that they will be participating in the shows in 2010,” said Mr Stephen Tan, chief executive of show organizer, Singapore Exhibition Services.
Quality customers at BroadcastAsia2009
Long time exhibitor of the show, Panasonic, was pleased with the business opportunities made at BroadcastAsia2009. Panasonic Systems Asia Pacific’s assistant general manager for its Broadcast Regional Operation Centre, Max Khang said, “This year celebrates our 10th year at BroadcastAsia. SES had gone the extra mile to create more potential client interaction opportunities for Panasonic, creating an unexpected increase in sales revenue for us.”
Panasonic’s success at the show was fuelled by their full High-Definition (HD) 3D mini theatre. The HD 3D 10-minute movie saw a constant string of viewers throughout the four days, and had many people talking about 3D in HD broadcasting as the new frontier.
Another satisfied exhibitor is Playbox, one of the world’s leading innovators and manufacturers of IT-based television technology. “Playbox is an international organization and we are gradually expanding our Asian presence. While this year’s economic climate has proved to be a challenge, we are indeed pleased that we’ve not only managed to garner new customers at BroadcastAsia, at the same time, our booth has been overcrowded with visitors on a daily basis,” said Peter Petrov, Playbox’s advertising manager.
The spotlight was on the Singapore Pavilion at BroadcastAsia. With more than 20 local companies taking part for the first time, interactive digital media was one of the main features. One such project is “Wish Singapore” developed by PGK Media. Making its debut at this year’s National Day, the gigantic floating LED cylindrical display will feature Singaporeans’ well wishes at Marina Bay.
IPTV in the spotlight at BroadcastAsia2009 International Conference
A hot topic at the conference this year is IPTV. Although IPTV is not a new idea, the challenge now is reinventing it into a more compelling feature. The day long discussions, chaired by David Wood, Head of Emerging Media at the European Broadcasting Union, talked about the technical issues surrounding IPTV, and business opportunities such as how IPTV can differentiate itself from other TV services.
The session also looked at how advertising revenues can be derived from operating an IPTV service. Participants at the IPTV session explored the possibility of combining IPTV’s Video-on-demand features with internet features such as social networking sites and virtual sites. The topic of discussion was also whether this would be successful, as participants also felt that internet-based content often lack the right business models.
Worldwide and regional launches at CommunicAsia2009
This year, crowds at CommunicAsia were treated to a range of new launches, including the latest mobile devices from the industry’s market leaders. At the show, LG unveiled its Crystal GD900, the world’s first transparent phone, while Samsung introduced its next era of smartphones in a worldwide launch. The highly-anticipated, new Samsung Jet supports the latest smartphone features which include multi-task manager and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, bringing user-friendly menu navigations in a sleek and compact design. Garmin and ASUS also leveraged on CommunicAsia’s high profile to launch its first ever collaboration, the Garmin-ASUS nuvifones G60, a smartphone with location based capabilities.
With green revolution taking centre stage this year, CommunicAsia saw over 40 companies showcasing their green solutions. Indian vendor VNL took this opportunity to launch the world’s first 100% solar-powered GSM base station while companies such as ZTE and Samsung introduced handsets made from recycled materials.
“CommunicAsia provided the perfect platform for the Broadband Forum to promote the strength and progress of the broadband subscriber growth worldwide. It also gave us the opportunity to meet and educate an influential level of executives throughout Asia” said Robin Mersh, chief operating officer of the global consortium. The Broadband Forum announced the latest broadband statistics, which showed Asia leading the way with broadband connections, jumping by a third compared to 4% growth globally.
Results for NAVTEQ‘s second annual Global LBS Challenge for the Asia-Pacific region was announced at CommunicAsia2009. Japan-based Navitime took the grand prize for its application of the same name, bagging over $557,500 in cash, tools and data licenses and handsets from NAVTEQ. Thomas Tierney, developer alliance manager for NAVTEQ said this year saw a wider variety of categories and some new technologies like the ability to pan and tilt maps with the handset and geo-tagged handset broadcasting.
Discussing business strategies at CommunicAsia2009 Summit
The CommunicAsia2009 Summit attracted an impressive 700 delegates and saw an exciting line-up of up-to-date topics in the infocomm industry. The attendance by heavyweight speakers provided delegates with powerful insights to addressing the most current issues faced in today’s global marketplace.
At the CEO Perspectives which kicked off the summit, telecommunications bigwigs shared about the need to invest in their networks, go all-IP and embrace their competition in matters like infrastructure sharing. Dato’ Zam Isa, Group CEO of Telekom Malaysia asserts that the business model for telcos is not about voice anymore. “You have to change your mindset and move up the value chain and become an enabler of any-to-any services,” he said.
A boost for the region’s CG industry
Held in conjunction with BroadcastAsia2009, CG Overdrive 2009 saw a line up of elite CG artists from world famous studios speaking at the conference and Professional Tracks, which are lecture-style workshops that impart specific skills to CG professionals. The sessions gave participants an opportunity to interact with industry big names from Pixar, Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, and even renowned concept development visionary and illustrator, Craig Mullins. In its fourth edition, CG Overdrive has grown with the increasing demand for local content from Singapore by bringing in a stellar group of speakers who are gurus in their specialised fields of CG to share their expert knowledge with participants.
Public-Private partnerships for e-government initiatives
The inaugural iGov Global Exchange drew 600 leading e-Government experts from 27 countries to discuss opportunities and challenges in developing successful e-Government programmes. Singapore’s senior minister Goh Chok Tong shared about good governance in his 45 years’ experience in government at the opening of the iGov Global Exchange. Urging the public sector to open up e-government platforms to the private sector, he said that government agencies should take the role of facilitator and enabler, and evolve from “being the sole provider of services to being a provider of a platform”.
Speakers from the industry and various government agencies shared their experience on implementing e-Government initiatives in countries including Canada, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the UAE and the United States. In addition, the programme for delegates included visiting the iGov exhibition at CommunicAsia and site visits to some of the government infocomm projects in Singapore.
