CES 2024: Chinese tech giants Alibaba, ByteDance lead China’s return to premier consumer electronics show in Las Vegas

TikTok eyes US$17.5 billion shopping business on Amazon’s turf

“You have big exhibitors coming back, really showcasing that this is a platform that really pushes for consumers and enterprises and maybe [can] combat some of these major challenges that we’re facing,” Brian Comiskey, director of consumer programmes at the CTA, said after his opening remarks on Sunday afternoon.

This marks a stark reversal from 2023, when China had just started to reopen its borders but restrictions did not fall fast enough for many companies to make it to the show in the first week of January.

“Some of the largest Chinese companies that have signed up for participation this year … will all have a large presence at the show,” John Kelley, vice-president and show director for CES at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), told the Post in an interview on November 29. “But where we’re really seeing growth on the Chinese side is smaller companies.”

Kelley said the CTA was anticipating numbers to reach pre-Covid levels, and it looks like the show has pulled it off. The number of Chinese companies is more than the 1,000 that state-run tabloid Global Times reported for the 2020 show. CTA said the show has attracted around 4,000 exhibitors, although numbers are not final yet. Kelley said CES expects to see 130,000 attendees.

Alibaba was highlighted as one of the exhibitors using machine learning platforms to “power e-commerce”.

Even much smaller companies are touting their use of AI. Govee, a smart lighting maker from Shenzhen, is advertising the use of generative AI to help people create specific moods, like asking for a backdrop that is evocative of the Hong Kong skyline or Barbie Dreamhouse.

Xpeng is among the major electric vehicle makers at the show, where it will be demonstrating its new “flying car”, the AeroHT.

TikTok and its Beijing-based owner ByteDance have been under intense political scrutiny in Washington over data privacy and national security concerns. This may not have deterred TikTok from showing up to the largest consumer electronics shows in its largest market.

Number of Chinese tech firms at CES 2023 less than half of pre-pandemic level

Representatives from the company will join two panels at the show to discuss sports and entertainment. Beyond entertainment, though, ByteDance makes much of its money through advertising and has been trying to grow its e-commerce business.

Other Chinese companies cannot exhibit at the show even if they want to because they have been listed on Washington’s Entity List. This includes the world’s largest drone maker DJI and a number of semiconductor companies.

“From a show management perspective, we welcome participation from every company,” CTA’s Kelley said. “As a US-based trade association, we cannot allow participation if they are on some sort of Entity List. That’s really the only place where we will not allow participation.”

Still, CES may be more important for the many small firms that make up the bulk of the show’s exhibition floor. It remains the premier event of its kind.

“We like to make the case that the four days you spend in Las Vegas is some of the most efficient use of your time in the sense that you don’t have to necessarily travel the world to meet with individual business partners on six different continents,” said Kelley. “Instead, you can come to Las Vegas and meet everybody that you need to meet from the global technology industry over the course of a week.”