CTIA: how did it go so wrong

The fall of CTIA: how did it go so wrong?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. United States-based CTIA, having changed the name of its annual gathering constantly in recent years, kept the changes ringing this year by announcing another name change. In fact, you could say they took it to the next level by teaming up with the GSM Association to put on the latest edition of its trade show, which took on the Mobile World Congress (MWC) name. Or, we could call it what it really is and say that CTIA is hitching its wagon to another star because its own brand of trade shows has a decreasing turnout year after year.

PC Magazine reports that CTIA’s trade shows have been suffering for years. Once a magnet for grand announcements of big-ticket new technologies, the conference began suffering around 2013 from a lack of big announcements. In 2014, it rebranded to Super Mobility Week only to play second fiddle to other shows such as IFA in Berlin and the MWC in Barcelona, from which a decreasing number of weary traders would visit. In 2015, CTIA only attracted 30,000 visitors to its show, which likely spurred the idea for its cooperation with the much more successful, Europe-based MWC.

So far, the results have not lived up to the hope of increased attendance, as only 21,000 attended the joint CTIA-GSMA show. Indeed, the Stateside edition of the Mobile World Congress, which was held 12-14 September in San Francisco, was snakebitten by a number of factors. First of all, the venue for the show, the Moscone Center, is almost a third of the size of the Las Vegas Convention Center, where CTIA had their event in 2016. The smaller venue does not only equate to smaller numbers of people, but its location on the West Coast places it further away from the major trading hubs of North America.

Further, everybody knows that mid-September is prime Apple announcement season. Any mobile traders that would be in the western United States would be more likely to be on hand for the debut of the much talked-about iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus than to be at an event that is gradually slipping out of the tech world’s field of vision and, more importantly, doesn’t have the physical space to host them.