Gitex: The world's largest ICT trade fair – did not succeed with CeBIT

Gitex in Dubai, together with an associated start-up exhibition, had 8300 exhibitors. That is far more than CeBIT had in its heyday. In over 40 halls, all the big names were there: SAP, Oracle, Dell, Lenovo, HPE, AWS, Huawei, ZTE, Bosch, DeepL, Software AG, Salesforce, IBM, Google, China Telecom, Cisco, Ericsson, AWS and many more. A total of 180 countries were represented – an increase of 40 percent compared to the previous year. These included many up-and-coming countries such as South Africa, Puerto Rico and Vietnam. The European presence also reached a record level with around 1500 companies from 38 countries. Most of the new exhibitors came from Austria, Portugal, Latvia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Switzerland. With over 200,000 visitors, Gitex did not reach the maximum visitor numbers of CeBIT, but with admission prices ranging from 113 to 2500 euros, plus flight and hotel costs, it appeals exclusively to trade visitors.

ITC trade fairs in Germany had a different concept

The success of Gitex leads to the question: Why is an ICT trade fair in the desert more successful than in Germany? One particular advantage of Dubai is undoubtedly its infrastructure –, especially in comparison to Hanover. Dubai has over 800 hotels with 150,000 rooms, and the airport is the second largest in the world after Atlanta with 90 million passengers. But the decisive point is a different one. Dubai's supposed disadvantage, namely its status as an economic island, is actually the key to its success. Dubai does not have an attractive domestic market. It is only a kind of hub, a global marketplace. In the broadest sense, it can be compared to an oasis where caravans arrive from many directions, exchange their goods and then move on again. So anyone exhibiting in Dubai wants to address the markets in many other countries, primarily the Asian and Pacific regions. Exhibitors from France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany confirm this: "We are reaching the dynamic markets in India, Africa and the Middle East here," says Carl Ziegler, CEO of T-Link, which organized the joint Swiss stand.

This is a very different trade fair concept to the German ICT trade fairs. Their exhibitors only focused on the DACH market, with Benelux, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe at best. For many years, the motto of US providers in particular was: If you want to sell IT in Germany, you have to be at CeBIT. This focus was also reflected in the fact that there were hardly any English posters on the CeBIT stands – and the English language skills on many stands were not at a professional level.

Another important point that distinguishes Gitex is the high professional level of the accompanying presentations. For example, Isabella Gradert from Airbus Germany gave a highly acclaimed presentation on quantum computing, in which she gave an outlook on the future use of this technology to simulate complex physical processes. Under the name DevSlam, there was a hall with 250 exhibitors on the subject of software development, which was visited by 18,000 visitors. Over 100 seminar-style presentations took place in the associated workshop area. The speakers came from ETH Zurich, LinkedIn and Google, among others. Other discussions revolved around 5G, EdTech, digital cities and the energy transition. But of course, most of the talks revolved around artificial intelligence. Incidentally, the UAE is the only country with a minister for "Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work", Omar Sultan Al Aloma.

He and many other government representatives repeatedly pointed out the economic attractiveness of Dubai, which is primarily since all business activities are largely simplified. Venture financiers repeatedly mentioned this at the Startup Fair: "There is no place in the world where it is quicker and easier to set up a company," said Bilal Baloch from UAE venture Shorooq Partners. He also referred to another point: "We have no shortage of highly qualified personnel here; the best people from all over the world apply to us – we are often spoiled for choice," is his problem, which many other countries can only dream of. UAE Minister of Economy Abdullah Bin Touq Al Marri confirms this: "The UAE's ecosystem attracts many qualified people from all over the world, and we will soon be the R&D center of the world", he predicts.

Gitex comes to Berlin

Spoiled by Gitex's international success, the company is now venturing into regional markets. Gitex will soon be held in Morocco, Nigeria, Singapore, Thailand – and, from May 21 to 25, 2025, also in Berlin. The Dubai trade fair organizers hope that this will enable them to create a successful successor to CeBIT.

(mki)