Rahul Gupta
NEW DELHI: The Koreans are here!! For the first time in the history of IIW,
South Korean companies made their presence felt with a number of Korean
companies taking part. They are mainly from the mobile apps, Internet technology
firms but the lukewarm response from the visitors though may just prove to be a
dampner.
There has been an obvious effect of the slowdown and it is being felt.
Participation is about half of that of last year.
This time the organizers decided to focus on specific tracks such as
convergence, finance, and E-procurement hoping to draw more people. But this was
not to be. Exhibitors at the fair commented on the noticeable drop in visitors
this year.
21 Telecom CEO Chum Soon Deug said, " This is the first occasion when we
are participating in such an event and we are not getting good response. It's
bad on our part as well as on organizers."
Similar were the views echoed by the deputy general manager of Bharti
Broadband Networks Ltd., Sanjai Saxena, " For us this is worst. The very
first day saw just few visitors and they too are busy in other activities
instead of visiting the stalls or attending the conferences."
Gilat marketing director South East Asia Giora Reish said, "We were
expecting the impact of slowdown but this is really bad. Still we are looking
forward to it." Reish is confident of participating in the event next year
also.
Its' not only that the stalls are facing dismal presence of visitors, similar
is the situation inside the conference halls also. Some conference rooms saw
only eight to ten people attending the sessions despite the presence of good
speakers.
But the organizers are still hopeful and are expecting that the situation
would be good in the next two days. Microland managing director Pradeep Kar is
still hopeful of profits from this exhibition and said that the next two days
would be good as there are some interesting sessions to be held in these two
days. Microland group is the organizer of the event.