CES 2021 – Digital shadow.

A large part of the show is likely to be missing in action.

• The pandemic is likely to have 2 main impacts on CES. The first will be to push healthcare tech to the top of the agenda and the second will be to greatly reduce its impact and utility for the majority of participants.
• Unlike Mobile World Congress, which was completely cancelled, CES 2021 is an all-online affair which presents great challenges given the global nature of the participants which will now be spread through all the time zones of the world instead of just one in Las Vegas.
• To try and deal with this, all of the sessions will be available on-demand until February 15^th and the exhibitions will be available to view 24 hours a day.
• However, the virtual stands will only be attended by exhibitors between 7 am to 8 pm in terms of responding to enquiries and questions.
• It remains to be seen how effective this is going to be compared to the real event and for my part, I am expecting a diminished experience as:
  • First, chance: CES is characterised by running into people one does not expect to meet as well as stumbling across hidden gems on the exhibition floor.
  • Chance meetings are now almost impossible, and the hidden gems are going to be much more difficult to find.
  • However, travel time from one session to the next will be greatly reduced as I often find that I walk at least 10 miles (>2 hours) every day during CES.
  • Second, networking: A large proportion of attendees visit CES and many other trade shows as a way of meeting their customers on the sidelines as well as improving their professional networks.
  • I suspect that this will be reduced to virtually nothing this year greatly impacting the value and utility of this event.
  • However, participants will be saved the time and cost of the event that can be put towards travelling and meeting with those contacts later in the year once the pandemic restrictions have been eased.
  • Third, noise: This event is going to be dominated by the companies that have the biggest marketing budgets as everyone is competing on a level playing field for eyeballs.
  • Hence, I suspect the smaller, and often the most interesting, companies will find it much harder to be heard as there will be much less chance of footfall and word-of-mouth marketing.
• The net result is that this event is going to be far more focused on the official content making it much more of a big marketing exercise as opposed to an industry gathering.
• Given the current global situation the main themes I am looking for are:
  • First, e-health, telemedicine & wellness: which are going to be top billing this year.
  • Special attention will be paid to devices and systems that enable consultation to be carried out remotely as well as wellness monitoring such as blood pressure and blood oxygen and so on.
  • Crazy devices such as personal air purifiers (eg LG PuriCare) that were viewed with amusement last year will be viewed as much more relevant this year.
  • Second, touchless operation: Although the degree to which SARS-Cov-2 is transmitted via touch is uncertain, it is seen to be a threat and so technology that enables touchless operation will be highlighted.
  • Digital assistants and voice control have been around for a while but are likely to see a rebound of interest this year despite the fact that the AI that runs them remains woefully inadequate.
  • Expect other areas such as touchless haptic feedback, gesture control and so on to receive heightened awareness and interest.
  • Third, robotics: driverless deliveries within a local area have been around for a year or so but their adoption is likely to be accelerated by the pandemic.
  • Given that these devices move slowly along the pavement, they are not subject to the same level of safety requirements that vehicles are meaning that they could hit the market in volume sooner.
  • Consequently, expect an increase in the number of offerings addressing this space to be touted this year.
• Alongside these trends, I expect the show also be underpinned by the steady roll-out of 5G which is gathering pace thanks to Apple deploying it across its range as well as dramatic price declines of Android 5G devices.
• While CES is not going to have its usual impact on business development and customer relationships for most participants, the trends will still be an important indicator of how the technology sector is going to pan out in 2021.
• From a financial perspective, it still looks very overvalued and as a result, I have little interest in taking positions at this point in time.