This week, 67,573 people came to Asia’s largest infocomm and media trade exhibitions - CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia - to showcase and view the latest technologies, participate in industry forums and interact with fellow professionals from across the world. Of the total number of attendees, 52 percent came from outside of Singapore, hailing from around 100 countries and regions across Asia-Pacific, Europe, US and the Middle-East.

Over four days, visitors witnessed cutting-edge technologies and business solutions designed to enhance enterprises’ mobility and users’ lifestyles. Held together with CGOverdrive2008 and inter-government and industry meetings such as the imbX Ministerial Forum and the Regional Seminar on Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting, the event spread over eight halls, totaling 72,000 square metres of floor space. More than 2,300 exhibiting companies from 61 countries and regions demonstrated products and solutions throughout the value chain of convergent technologies.

“We delivered a robust and relevant event this year with the strong support and representation from our exhibitors – both market leaders and emerging enterprises. Exhibitors in the WiMAX, IPTV and mobile entertainment segments have responded strongly to the ever-increasing role of technology in our lives. These clusters have grown substantially and attracted good crowds at the show,” said Mr Stephen Tan, Chief Executive of Singapore Exhibition Services and President of Allworld Exhibitions Alliance.

“The shows this year have met exhibitor expectations and about 78 percent of them have already committed to participate in 2009. With their backing, we are confident that CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia will continue to be a key highlight on the ICT and media industry calendar in Asia,” concluded Mr. Tan.

Unveiled at CommunicAsia2008 and Broadcast Asia 2008
Thrilling crowds at CommunicAsia were various new launches of new-generation mobile phones. Samsung chose the show as a platform to launch a new touchscreen smartphone - the i900 Omnia – globally. LG and Garmin also introduced new handsets and product offerings, leveraging on the show as a launching pad to reach out to their audience worldwide.

The NAVTEQ Global Location-based Services Challenge was held for the first time in Asia-Pacific. NAVTEQ made the results announcement at their booth on 18 June, giving away over USD4.5 million in cash prizes and data licenses. Grand Prize Winner Joikusoft walked away with a prize package valued at USD275,000, including USD50,000 in cash and USD225,000 in NAVTEQ data licenses.

A key highlight at BroadcastAsia2008 was the NHK exhibit, which showcased for the first time in Asia outside of Japan, the Super Hi-vision system. About 5,000 visitors witnessed first hand the SHV system, which offers a projection system with resolution 16 times higher than regular HDTV.

Panasonic, took the opportunity to unveil the world’s first 6X Write-Once Blu-ray discs which have a maximum data transfer speed of 2165Mbps and said to be 20 percent faster than that of 16X DVD-R discs.

CGOverdrive
CGOverdrive2008, featured a star-studded line-up of internationally renowned CG artists, all of whom are directly involved in creating box-office hits, award-winning feature animations and VFX films or games. It was held for the second time alongside BroadcastAsia this year. Over the four days, visitors attended the conference and hands-on master classes, gaining insights from the Business Forum, and got a chance to view a display of digital art and animated short films from students and professionals around the world at the CG Excellence competition.

CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia will be back at Singapore Expo from 16 – 19 June 2009.