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LogiMAT 2016 leaps above the 40,000 visitor mark

With an enormous leap in visitor numbers of around 25 percent as compared to last year, LogiMAT 2016, the 14th International Trade Fair for Distribution, Materials Handling and Information Flow, came to a close on Thursday, March 10th. During the three days of this event, a total of 43,465 trade visitors (+23.8 % as compared to 2015) came to the exhibition centre in Stuttgart – that´s 8,360 more than last year. These statistics were recorded by independent market researchers Wissler & Partner of Basel. “The high level of interest from the visitors is a vote of confidence in the concept behind this event and in the general growth trend of LogiMAT,” confirmed Exhibition Director Peter Kazander, Managing Director of EUROEXPO Messe- und Kongress-GmbH, Munich, referring to the growing international scope of this trade fair. In recent years, too, the number of visitors coming to LogiMAT has been growing fast, distorted only slightly in 2015 because of a train strike. “This year´s figures are setting the record straight, and underlining the outstanding significance of LogiMAT for intralogistics and its leading position in the international competition,” said Kazander. As “the first guest organizer to fill all the space at the exhibition centre”, according to the Stuttgart exhibition company, LogiMAT 2016 filled all the halls at the Stuttgart exhibition centre between 8 and 10 March 2016. 1,280 international exhibitors (+10.2 %), of which almost one quarter were from 32 countries (+15 %) around the world, presented their latest solutions and product developments for intelligent, future-capable intralogistics, on 95,400 square metres of exhibition space (+12 %) in eight halls. The rise in the number of international exhibitors and visitors also points to the high profile LogiMAT enjoys abroad, said Kazander.

“Extremely satisfied” is how the exhibition managers described the result – a double-digit percentage increase in exhibitor numbers and exhibition space, and a significant rise in visitor interest. According to the Basle-based independent market researchers Wissler & Partner, more than one third of the visitors (35.7 %) had travelled over 300 kilometres to get to the show. More than 20 percent of the trade audience had travelled to the event from outside Germany. Of those 69 percent came from EU member states, 17 percent from the rest of Europe and 14 percent from overseas, Asia and the Middle East. More than 88 percent of the trade visitors said they came from small or medium-sized businesses and had decision-making powers on capital investments. Around 40 percent of the trade visitors came to the show with a specific intention to place orders, and one in five either placed an order directly at LogiMAT or would be doing so in the time afterwards. In an overall assessment of the fair, 78.3 percent of the LogiMAT visitors gave this intralogistics event top marks - either a grade 1 or 2 rating.

In many cases the exhibitors at LogiMAT 2016 made use of this presentation platform to showcase their latest products and innovations, among them often specific solutions addressing the megatrends of Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things and e-commerce. “This underlines the reputation of LogiMAT as an information platform, a working fair and a trend barometer for developments in intralogistics,” said Dr Petra Seebauer, Managing Director of EUROEXPO Messe- und Kongress-GmbH. “If you can´t find it at LogiMAT, then it doesn´t exist,” added Kazander.

Great interest on the part of exhibitors and the trade audience was also evident in the trading platform TradeWorld, which this year was held for the third time as part of LogiMAT. This focuses on the close integration of logistics with the trading and distribution processes in B2B and B2C. This year the exhibitors presented solutions in Retail 4.0, e.g. on e-procurement, payment, marketing, shop solutions, dispatches management, fulfilment and returns handling. “This year´s TradeWorld has confirmed that e-commerce and omnichannel processes and the logistics that underpin these processes do indeed complement each other very well,” explained Dr Seebauer, Director of TradeWorld 2016. “The integration of the trading platform TradeWorld into the trade fair LogiMAT has proven to be the right decision. E-commerce is a particular growth engine. With this TradeWorld shows the enormous added value that a close integration of e-commerce and logistics can offer. We will further expand the presentation of corresponding solutions.”

LogiMAT 2016 was fully booked, even though it was the first event to take up all the available space at the Stuttgart exhibition centre. By 2018, the date the new hall – Hall 10 – will be finished at the exhibition centre, the event is expected to expand into this new space, with a further rise in exhibitor numbers. “We want to offer the trade audience not only a bigger event, but also diverse and attractive solutions,” summed up Exhibition Director Kazander. “Whatever the future development of LogiMAT, it remains a highly efficient B2B platform, a compact showcase for gathering information and for comparing the offerings of international suppliers of efficient intralogistics.”

The next LogiMAT opens in just six weeks time – between 19 and 21 April 2016, in Nanjing, China.

LogiMAT 2017 in Stuttgart takes place from 14 to 16 March 2017.