Booths full of exhibitions, corridors filled with people distributing leaflets, packed up cloakrooms, and the beeps of passes being scanned at the entrance of the hall – these are the familiar sights and sounds of business conventions.

Cebit is an enormous trade fair that has been organised since 2004. In its first year, over 480,000 business people attended, a number that grew every subsequent year. the growth stopped in 2009, when attendance dropped by 100,000. the decline continued in the following years, with only 200,000 people attending in 2016.

Is the market to blame for this?

one analyst suggests that the internet revolutionised not only the market, but people’s minds as well – it broke down barriers to communication and made it easier than it ever has been. this innovation made attending brick-and-mortar conventions more of a serious commitment. additionally, he mentions the cost of participation – booths, transportation, travel expenses – as deterrents to attending trade fairs in the present day. “the last ten years have seen evolution upon evolution,” he says. “but that’s all done now, and there are just not that many new releases anymore. does that mean that trade fairs have lost their shine?”

however, in another article of his, “alexa’s Smart Home,” we find that all the makings of a “smart home war” with amazon’s launch of the
alexa voice recognition service, judging other services such as Google home to be “a drop in alexa’s bucket.”

it needs to be mentioned that the quality of the events have a new face. a visitor explains: “once i got past my initial annoyance and sadness at what the conference had become, i could see it was a more relaxed affair where i could amble from stand to stand, easily breeze through my light schedule, and meet a bunch of new contacts along the way.”

Questions still remain, however. what is the point of trade fairs? are they still a viable method of advertising or an outdated model of doing business? is it a matter of the expectations of visitors? we can treat them as an exchange for sharing ideas and socialising with new contacts, but are they worth the money?

Nokia on the Comeback?

with samsung launching new instalments of its flagship Galaxy line, Apple releasing a new iPhone on an annual basis, and Chinese vendors taking increasingly bigger shares of the smartphone market, it’s seemingly impossible for Nokia to, as Paul briden says, “return to the smartphone space.”

briden reports that Nokia is going to release an update of its Nokia 3 line, which will be able to stand toe-to-toe with the top
smartphones of the day. the new phones will reportedly feature 1080p screens, bigger sensors, and fingerprint scanners. these new phones are said to be similar to the samsung Galaxy Nexus, but were created to compete with the Galaxy s8 and the iPhone 7. briden praises the price, saying that it “makes sense” and that the number on the page sometimes makes all the difference in the world.

Focusing on the new phones’ functionalities, Juno Sarrikas, Nokia’s chief product officer, states that “we have set ourselves a mission to deliver the best possible smartphone experience with a beautiful premium design touch.” additionally, Google’s main focus was on the materials from which the phone was produced. he also touts its camera features, battery life, and its embrace of the android operating system. he believes that these new features will help the company leapfrog apple and samsung in the smartphone market.

amazingly enough, the Nokia 3310, a flagship phone from the early 2000s is “making a modern-day comeback” according to Chaim Gantenberg. Nokia has released it as part of this new volley of smartphones, and James titcomb hails the 3310’s return, calling it an “iconic machine (…) with a battery that lasts a month.” Moreover, he praises its thinner size and colour screen while still keeping its old, candy-bar form factor, which
is owed to shunning the need to run high-demand applications such as Facebook and whatsapp. the 3310’s designers chimed in: “For the Nokia 3310 we just couldn’t resist. we wanted to reward loyal Nokia phone fans and make a statement that shows that heritage, innovation, and modern design can go hand-in-hand.” the phone also includes the iconic game “snake”, updates with colour and better graphics.

the phone is not without its detractors, however. Fox News calls the 3310 a “dumb-phone by today’s standards. it certainly can’t do things we take for granted today, like check your email or surf the web.”

The World According to Mark zuckerberg

Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg is said to becoming a major player in the smartphone industry, involving his social media company in some its more crucial business aspects.

his main focus is on photographic effects, such as filters, which will work as a set of tools for outsourced it programmers creating apps with the help of smartphone cameras via the Facebook app. Zuckerberg mentions that he is also going to create his own operating system to compete with the likes of safari, Firefox, and Chrome.

by the looks of it, Mark Zuckerberg is out to overtake the companies who create half the apps on your phone. Questions as to how much of your personal data you will be required to disclose to use these new innovations must be raised. although all of his plans are for the long-term, it’s not hard to imagine that these products will make quite a splash when they hit the market. with the announcement of these new ventures, however, the social media mogul is declaring war on the market’s giants and creating a new era for technology and its users.

visa or masterCard – Whose Side Are You On?

visa and MasterCard have always been rivals on the market, and have always competed with security and practicality to attract and keep customers.

MasterCard has attained the upper hand by introducing a fingerprint scanner. This innovation surely has many advantages, as it ensures security by requiring its user to use a unique identifier (in this case, a fingerprint) to complete transactions. according to daniel roberts, MasterCard stresses the drawbacks of using cash, connecting it to illegal business and untracked transactions, while touting the security of fingerprint scanners. the company is also experimenting with facial-recognition software, mobile payments, contactless transactions, and its own “digital wallet” that it thinks can succeed where others have failed.

MasterCard’s old rival visa, though being the bigger company, has not kept up with growth. why? being “interchangeable” in consumers’ minds, MasterCard decided to focus on innovating and leapfrogging visa. ajaypal singh banga, the new Ceo of MasterCard, says that his company not only focuses on technology but security, counting on that to attract new customers and keep existing ones. daniel roberts also mentions that “cards that contain biometric data” sufficiently infuse these new technologies with an appropriate amount of safety.

still, roberts reminds us that the competition doesn’t sleep, pointing out visa Checkout and apple’s iMoney as suitable competitors. visa is still the largest company with the largest revenue on the credit card market, but it is becoming clear that MasterCard is a pioneer in technology, proving ready, willing and able to introduce a whole range of innovations that make non-cash transactions safer.

Is Samsung facing a Downturn?

the smartphone market is in the throes of a boom. as manufacturers prepare to showcase the newest technologies at the biggest trade fairs in europe, it would seem that the boom shows no sign of busting.

without a doubt, samsung has become a leader in all rankings, aiming for a 25% global market share, and also reaching a double digit percentage of global smartphone shipments for the first time in Q4 2016. Success, however, depends on the markets that the phones are being sold in. depending on the price and the local currency rate, both high- and low-end phones can be sold in numerous regions of the world. as we read in the article of MwC: “For asian manufacturers, europe is a good place to start before targeting the us. Cheaper phones have done well in countries like spain, where mobile subscriptions are sold without a headset subsidy.” these cheaper phones have cut into samsung’s market share in europe, where it dropped to 13.1% because of local vendors.

as for samsung’s trading manner and its global recall of the Galaxy Note 7, the manufacturer decided to focus solely on tablet models at a a time when rivals like apple have trading strategies based on multiple different products. according to 2017 data from trendforce, samsung’s market share percentage peaked in 2014, while apple’s was 10% less. 2015 saw samsung suffer a decrease from 27.8% to 24.8% as apple reached a peak of 17.5%. in 2016, however both companies’ market share fell by 2-3%

will samsung’s market share will continue to fall? will that decrease correlate to an increase for apple’s market share?

apple is samsung’s biggest rival, having sold over 27 million iPhones with a 6 million yearon-year increase in unit sales. Pushing aside the market data, samsung still remains the topseller, says research director anshul Gupta:

“For 2016 as a whole, smartphone sales totalled nearly 1.5 billion, up around 5% from the year before. in terms of vendors, however, samsung reigned supreme. the company shipped 306.4 million smartphones, giving it 20.5% of the market. apple shipped 216.06 million smartphones for 14.4 percent of the market.”

Gupta also notices that both samsung and apple had ceded ground to Chinese distributors, which could explain their respective declines. Furthermore, Gupta states that has been continuing its decline for the past two quarters, to which he attributes the discontinuation of the Galaxy Note 7: “the withdrawal of the Galaxy Note 7 left a gap in its large-screen phone range.” apple seized upon this opportunity to close the gap in the market share rankings; according to table a, apple seems to leapfrog samsung by almost a million units.

the reasons why samsung is suffering a downturn may be the very fact that its rivalry with apple exists. as Ganther explains, numerous asian manufacturers have seen their share increase. he also states that only a release of the “next Galaxy flagship phone” can guarantee samsung’s quick recovery.