IFA who is desperately trying to spruik Australians to attend this year’s show, has been dealt a major blow with Samsung deciding to pull out of the event that is attended by hundreds of Australian executives, media and distributors.
IFA are not saying which other major brands have pulled out due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
According to Kenneth Hong Head of Global Communications at LG Electronics a decision on whether they will attend this year’s show will be made this week.
“What we have to identify is whether we will have any substantial news for the IFA show. The issue of whether we attend or not attend is a problem at the moment and we are working through the issues”.
“At the end of the day it’s all about what is best for our people LG Electronics and the value of attending IFA”.
According to sources IFA is telling attendees that some 800 journalists have registered to attend including journalists from Australia, Korea, China and Japan. What is not known is how these journalists will get to the event, the cost as current air fares are expensive or whether they will have to quarantine for 14 days on their return.
Samsung who has been a regular attendee of this show since 1991 has said that it is too risky to attend this year’s event, they normally take over the bulk of the space at the City Cube one of the most popular IFA exhibition areas.
At IFA 2019, Samsung announced its first non-flagship 5G smartphone – Galaxy A90 along with other household appliances.
This year the Company is doing a major event on the 5th of August to announce new Smartphones.
Among the new devices set to be announced is the Galaxy Note 20 series and a Galaxy Fold 2 could be announced on August 5.
We will expect to see a new Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy S20 FE aka Galaxy S20 Lite.
IFA management are trying to get International attendees to make the trip to Berlin.
Yesterday ChannelNews got an email that stated ‘Unfortunately, we have not received any feedback from you yet, so we are sending you a small reminder and would be pleased to host you at this year’s IFA’.
Health and Safety first as IFA Berlin reinvents itself for 2020 as a three-day event – from 3 to 5 September – with a tight limit on the number of attendees.
IFA will host four stand-alone events:
• our Media-Hub – IFA Global Press Conference for brands’ keynotes and press conferences.
• the sourcing show – IFA Global Markets.
• the innovation platform – IFA NEXT meets IFA SHIFT Mobility; and
• the IFA Business, Retail and Meeting Lounges.
