Canton Fair 2023
Last week we visited the Canton Fair 2023, as known as China Import and Export Fair, which is the largest and most representative trade fair in China. After a three-year hiatus under the influence of the pandemic, the offline exhibition finally restarted this spring. As a tech media, we tried to get a glimpse of the exhibition to see how the giant world factory shows the world its capacity, especially in the field of tech manufacturing.
The first Canton Fair was held in 1957 in Guangzhou. Now it’s developed to have 16 categories of products, which will be exhibited in 3 phases and 54 sections.
Indeed it’s the pinnacle of international trade events with a long history and staggering scale, attracting buyers from all over the world and has generated immense business dealings in China. So it’s really interesting that it has also become a microcosm of China’s hyper-speed development.
Most of the exhibitors are Chinese factories and trade companies. If they were lucky enough to get well-developed, you might have heard of the brands they built such as vacuum robot maker Ecovacs, Appliance maker Haier, and TV maker Hisense.
Tech on Canton Fair 2023
Unfortunately, we didn’t see those famous phone manufacturers or the new EV brands at the exhibition. But the good news is that we did get to learn a bit about how Chinese suppliers of electronics work downstream. Perhaps some of the products you are using are just the result of their design and manufacturing since most of the exhibitors at the show were willing to give up their own brands and offer custom OEM and ODM services to global buyers. And buyers may be primarily responsible for marketing, branding, and sales.
We have recorded some of the products we found interesting without purpose. So let’s take a look together.
Doni Intelligent mobile Dustcart Robot H100
We were mainly visiting Halls 1 to 3 in Zone A, where the main categories are electronics and household appliances. The first product that caught our eyes was the Intelligent mobile Dustcart Robot H100 from Doni. It can automatically replace big trash bins without human operation, which looks like a robot for serving commercial spaces or public spaces. It supports auto-recharging and intelligent systems to have multi-machine cooperation.
FuninVR gaming machines
The next product we found interesting is a super-cool 360° VR simulator, which seems to provide a completely immersive experience for simulation gaming of flight and shooting. The guy was really having fun here. And you can see some sort of VR racing motor and treadmill game machine. I didn’t really experience these machines since the booth is pretty busy with the long queues.
Ferrofluid Speaker
Then I found an interesting speaker, it’s a magnetic fluid speaker that waves with the music and uses magnetic fluid to visualize the sound.
HAKII MIX series Headphone
We’ve seen too many wireless headsets in the wearable industry, and most of them seem uninspired now. But here we found a creative wireless sports headphone made in a look of headbands. It calls Hakii Mix created by the brand Hakii. That’s one of the very few wearables that still look innovative at the exhibition.
Ecovacs Winbot W1 Pro
This is Ecovacs latest window cleaning robot, called Winbot W1 Pro, which has a steady-climbing system to offer a smooth cleaning experience for various surfaces like windows, polished wall,s and all kinds of glasses. It has a firm grip with 2800Pa suction power, so here it has automatic path planning and firm wipe without any assistant fixtures.
LOCTEK Ergonomic Fitness Chair
This was one of the most innovative products I saw at the exhibition, the latest desk bike with a chair look from Loctek, combining an indoor cycling bike with an office chair. It gives us a new idea that even if you are having desk-bound tasks with your hands and mind, you can still keep your legs exercising subconsciously.
HAVIT peripheral Collection
We also spotted a number of odd PC accessories, such as this transparent-styling or even complete RGB-styling mice, keyboards, and gamepads. This is a collection of peripherals from a brand called Havit.
AOCHUAN Smart S2 Phone Gimbal
The brand Aochuan brings us another smart gimbal for phones, which looks more professional than the Aochuan Smart X series that we reviewed before. It supports 360° gestured human tracking with a lovely fill light for V-loggers. It does feel like a DLSR gimbal that offers much better stability.
POWERUN 40000mAh IP67 Power Bank
And we also found a big power bank that features IP67-rated waterproofness and dust resistance. It has a 40000mAh battery capacity with multiple USB charging ports that support up to 100W power in total. And it looks pretty cool. The transparent panel and a multi-mode LED light make it look like a product designed for geeks.
YONGNUO YNLUX200 Handheld Fill-in Light
If you shoot videos indoors as often as we do, you probably know what it’s like to put up with bulky lighting equipment. But at the exhibition, I found a professional handheld 200W video light manufactured by YongNuo, which just caught our eyes at very first glance. It’s special because of its compact size for easy hand-holding and replaceable battery power supply. Meanwhile, it has a professional information display, multiple working modes, and easy operation. If you guys are interested in it, please let me know down below this video. We will buy it and do a quick review for you.
Comments & Verdict
It’s been almost four years since we last visited the Canton Fair. Four years ago we saw an explosion of smart wearable products and phone accessories. But this year we could feel the difference, as smart homes and entertainment devices were finding their way into the new world. For example, display devices are no longer just about TV, gaming, and office. Some manufacturers are starting to target niche markets such as educational use, and developing complementary education software and interaction.
Overall, we didn’t find so many innovative products and ideas, although most of them seem to be well developed and made. Many products don’t have particularly high technical barriers, which allows us to predict that in the near future, if China sees a wave of industrial shifts, then the South East Asian countries with lower manufacturing costs could be the ones to pursue in the world market.
But unfortunately, we didn’t get to see manufacturers from the electric-vehicle industry, which is another market and industry on the rise in China. Most of them were at the time in another exhibition, the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition. And what happened at that exhibition is a different story.
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