CES visitors down sharply

Barely 110,000 people attended the CEA show this year

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has confirmed that attendance at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was one of the lowest in years.

Unofficial figures from the CEA show that barely 110,000 people attended, down from over 141,000 the year before. Final confirmed figures will be released within the next 90 days, but the results will be a stark reminder of the perilous state of the market.

Nevertheless, the CEA has been trying to put a positive spin on the figures. "The level of excitement on the show floor was at an all-time high, with ground-breaking technologies such as the Palm Pre, Sony's flexible OLED display, 3D HDTV, Yahoo's TV Widget, LG's Watch Phone and an 8.5mm energy efficient plasma HDTV from Panasonic," said Karen Chupka, senior vice president of events and conferences at the CEA.

"Microsoft's Steve Ballmer announced the Windows 7 beta at his pre-CES keynote, and the download response was so high that it overloaded their systems."

The preliminary figures are even worse than the slight fall the CEA had predicted. The organisation had estimated around 130,000 visitors this year.

However, companies are still reporting that a significant amount of business was done on the show floor.

"This CES had the most chief executives in attendance since I can remember, and they are on the show floor. If you are not here at CES you are not in this industry," said Randy Fry, president of Fry's Electronics.