Local companies are doubling down this week in Las Vegas at the International Consumer Electronics Show, a massive yearly trade gathering that hypes the latest gadgets.
A sense of renewed optimism after two downbeat years is driving expansion for many at the show. Some companies that had booths at last year’s show are going bigger this time around. Others that went without booths in the past are doing them this year.
And companies are sending more marketing and other employees to the show, after limiting attendance in the past two years. Appointments with customers, suppliers and others are booked solid, they say.
“We are actually going much bigger this year than we did last year,” said Dan Kelly, vice president of consumer marketing for Fountain Valley’s D-Link Systems Inc., a maker of networking gear for consumers and small businesses that’s part of Taiwan’s D-Link Corp.
D-Link is springing for a larger, fancier booth on the show floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center, according to Kelly. It’s set to have a two-story booth on the convention center floor and a spot in the hallways between two of its halls.
“We have a couple of marketing stunts up our sleeve that should add some interest,” he said.
The approach is a marked change from 2010’s CES, which was clouded by larger economic worries about consumer spending. That led companies to cut back on displays and attendees.
Rebounding consumer confidence and a new generation of handheld do-all gadgets, including smartphones and Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet, have renewed interest in consumer electronics going into the show.
“Last year, we started to see the economy come back, and we have a lot of really great consumer solutions to show off,” D-Link’s Kelly said.
Irvine-based SRS Labs Inc., a maker of software for enhancing sound in audio devices, plans to host four suites at the Encore Wynn Las Vegas for displaying its technology.
“This is the most money we’ve spent, and this is our biggest show,” said Allen Gharapetian, vice president of marketing communications at SRS. “We have expanded our presence into four salon suites of about 2,500-square feet each, in which we are doing audio demonstrations.”
The hotel suites work better for SRS than the convention center, where “audio isn’t the best thing to demonstrate with all the competing noise,” Gharapetian said.
D-Link, which makes routers, media hubs and surveillance cameras, uses CES to debut marketing campaigns, according to Kelly.
CES “is really a great venue to gain attention for our products,” he said. “We see it as a key investment for what we are trying to do.”
D-Link also plans to take part in three of the biggest media events, which are held in ballrooms of the Las Vegas Strip’s hotels.
CES, which runs Wednesday through Sunday, attracts hundreds of thousands of retail buyers, exhibitors and media.
They all flock to the Las Vegas Convention Center and surrounding hotels to check out eye-catching displays and attend workshops and industry talks.
Among other local companies going to the show are Lake Forest-based disk drive maker Western Digital Corp., Cypress-based Universal Electronics Inc., a maker of remote controls, Fountain Valley-based memory products maker Kingston Technology Co. and computer accessories makers Targus Corp. and Mobile Edge LLC of Anaheim.
A handful of chipmakers are going, including Irvine’s Broadcom Corp., Newport Beach’s Conexant Systems Inc. and Irvine-based startup RFAxis Inc.
Viewsonic Inc., a maker of computers, flat TVs and monitors based just over the county line in Walnut, is heading back to the convention center after a long hiatus from the show floor.
In the past, the company has opted for an off-site demo room.
“It’s been about seven years since we have been on the show floor,” said Adam Hanin, vice president of marketing. “With the number of consumer-oriented products we have introduced in the back half of 2010, it made a lot of sense for us to be at CES in a big way and make sure everybody was aware of what we are doing.”
Attendance
This year’s show is expected to draw north of 120,000 attendees, according to early estimates from the Consumer Electronics Association, the Virginia-based trade group that puts on the show.
Last year’s show brought 126,000 attendees, up 12% from 2009, when some 113,000 people attended.
In a better economy in early 2008, the show drew 141,000 attendees.
Industry watchers expect this year’s show to spotlight tablets—small handheld computers with touch screens that typically are smaller than 10 inches across.
“The word of the day is tablet,” said Shawn DuBravac, chief economist at the Consumer Electronics Association. “We will see tablets galore at CES.”
This year, some 50 million tablets are expected to sell, more than double from last year, DuBravac said.
Tablets are a key market for chipmakers such as Broadcom and software companies such as Irvine’s BeamItDown Software LLC.
Viewsonic plans to show off its tablets.
“We want to firmly establish ourselves as leaders in the tablet space,” Hanin said. “We anticipate that CES this year will be the ‘tablet show.’”
Other themes from year’s past will return, including green and energy-saving technologies, 3-D and Internet connected TVs and a host of smartphones.
Other hot categories are video game accessories, “smart” appliances and electronics for cars, according to the Consumer Electronics Association’s DuBravac.
