LAS VEGAS ― With a record-breaking 3,264 exhibitors, the annual Consumer Electronics Show here has grown to the extent that it can’t expand in 2014, according to a chief organizer. 

Gary Shapiro, president of Consumer Electronics Association, told reporters on the sidelines of the electronics trade show that the organizer is having difficulty finding space until 2015 due to rising participation.

With Microsoft exempting itself from the list of exhibitors this year, Qualcomm has taken up the big pre-CES keynote speech with big customers like Samsung and LG Electronics and Sony Electronics securing large display areas.

Firms like Intel, Panasonic, Nikon, Hisense, Sharp and Canon have secured relatively big exhibition rooms with many other exhibitors tightly filling up the display area to greet over 150,000 visitors.

“There’s a lot of technology breakthroughs, there are new innovations, connectivity and the use of nano technology,” he said.

Shapiro also said that the automobile sector has become one of the most important trends in the consumer electronics industry as this year’s show has shown that many major auto brands have chosen to participate in it.

Those car manufacturers include Audi, Lexus, Hyundai Motor, Ford and General Motors.

“This has become one of the most important events for the auto tech industry in the world,” he said. “They’re the horsepower.”

He went a step further to say that driverless cars and robotics are certain to feature in the next decade.

Also, considering that there is a lot of investment being injected into wireless devices, growth in applications is also projected to be “tremendous,” according to the head of the U.S. market’s biggest consumer electronics group.

“The truth is, this trade show will not exist if there isn’t innovation,” he said. “We’re reflecting a broadly-defined industry … and products introduced at this event are phenomenal. It’s also about improving human life and that’s what excites me.”

By Cho Ji-hyun, Korea Herald correspondent
(sharon@heraldcorp.com)