CES 2024 – Day 1: Peaceful progress

Footfall and chaos.

• CES 2024 is one of the most peaceful that I have seen in recent years (I didn’t come in 2021).
• There is space on the Monorail, almost no queues for the loos and one can find a seat to have a sandwich at lunchtime.
• This is echoed through the Central and North Halls where there are no queues for the demos and everything is open and accessible without an appointment.
• Even the scrummage that is usually Eureka Park is fairly open and free flowing and it takes half the time to get around the hall than it previously did.
• This is reflected in what is on display much of which I saw last year but this year the new version is a bit better than it was before.
• Many exhibitors are also showing working products or software as opposed to the plastic mock-ups or slideware they came to the show with last year.
• This is not necessarily negative but demonstrable of a more mature industry where the weaklings have been shaken out and the survivors are moving steadily to market.
• Wireless power is a good example of this where this year I can only find Ossia and Powercast who don’t really compete against each other anymore.
• Both are showing better performance, more partners and products and are hoping that this will be the year when wireless power finally takes off.
• Of the other 4 or 5 players, there is no sign.
• Generally, products are more mature and many have a much better chance of generating revenues than they did last year.
• This maturity makes the sector less shiny and exciting meaning that the technology tourists are less interested in attending which I think is partially responsible for the relative calm.
• The other is geopolitics (see below).

China bows out.

• My worst prediction for 2023 was that China would be the dark horse of 2023 which looked ripe for a recovery and offered the cheapest valuations available.
• Unfortunately, there has been no recovery and despite protestations to the contrary, Chinese government policy has remained hostile to both technology companies and foreign investment throughout 2023.
• Chinese technology has had a horrible 2023 which combined with weakness in global device markets has done nothing to improve sentiment.
• Even in this state, I expected to see China return to the show in force as the USA remains a crucial export market for China and CES is supposed to be a global show.
• Instead, the Chinese presence is even smaller this year than it was in 2023 as there was still a tangible presence in 2023 beyond the big electronics companies that have large sales organisations based in the USA.
• In 2023 there were a number of companies who said that they were American but were Chinese companies in American clothing.
• This year, these have also disappeared meaning that there is hardly any Chinese participation beyond the usual commodity smart home products.
• What little space they occupied has been colonised by Korea and Japan where Korea in particular has hugely expanded its presence with numerous pavilions and moving up my rankings to No. 2 behind the now ubiquitous La French Tech.
• This is a sign that we are in for another frosty year as far as geopolitics is concerned placing China ever increasingly on the path to create its own technology standards.
• These will be incompatible with other global standards which in the long run will cause the Internet to split into two.
• This is something that RFM Research and Alavan Independent have long predicted and we continue to think that the entire industry will have lower long-term growth potential as a result.
• There remains no interest from anywhere in investing in the Chinese Technology sector and this looks unlikely to change in 2024.