[Shanghai, China=Digital Today reporter Daegeon Seok] More than 10 shuttle buses ran continuously between halls at the Electronica Shanghai 2026 exhibition venue. The exhibition, with 2,032 companies spread across 10 halls including W1 to W5 and N1 to N5 over about 120,000 square metres, was effectively impossible to cover on foot. A shuttle was essential to get from one end to the other. At each stop, visitors wearing badges around their necks lined up to wait for the next bus. Electronica Shanghai, held from July 1 to 3 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC), showed the scale of China’s electronics industry as much through scenes inside and outside the venue as through what was on display.

There was a convenience store inside the venue. Visitors moving between booths bought drinks and snacks and returned to their talks. Outside, there was also space to eat straight away, and around lunchtime it filled with people wearing badges. The space where tens of thousands stayed over three days became a commercial district in itself.

There was also a scene that contrasted with the open commercial area. At the entrance gates, bag security checkpoints were set up to check visitors’ belongings one by one. Lines formed at each gate as people put bags on the scanner belt and waited to pass through. With corporate prototypes and technical materials such as semiconductors, connectors and sensors concentrated in one place, access control was carried out strictly.

Inside the venue, some people were also noticeable for collecting business cards. They went around booths, exchanged brief greetings with company representatives and took their cards. A representative of one participating company said, "There is also a black market where they collect only the business cards of company representatives and trade them." With working-level staff and purchasing decision-makers from 2,032 companies gathered in one place, it showed that the value of the people who gather at this exhibition is so large that their contact details themselves can become a product.

◆ A booth attendant became a 'customer'… traders inside and outside the venue

There were also scenes where companies running booths became targets of sales. Representatives of small firms went around to company staff in booths, demonstrating and selling cleaner products they made. In some cases, they wiped something on the spot at one side of a booth, and the staff watching paid the price then and there and took the product. For the working-level staff from each company who had to stay at their booths during the exhibition period, they were customers gathered in one place. The exhibition that buys and sells parts and equipment was creating another market around its edges.

There was also a space for companies that could not set up booths. In a meeting area set up on one side of the venue, company representatives who came without booths held working-level meetings. Consultations continued at each table with laptops and documents spread out, while nearby people next in line waited holding materials. Their 모습 of waiting for their turn amid the noise of a crowded exhibition underscored that this exhibition is not just a showcase but a place where deals are made.

The events over three days at the venue, from shuttle buses and convenience stores to security checkpoints and a business-card market, and from sales inside and outside booths to meeting waiting rooms, showed the scale of the people and money absorbed by China’s electronics industry.

But this ecosystem itself is a threat to South Korean companies. A South Korean company representative who asked not to be named said, "China is truly an ecosystem," and added, "We are doing business seeing the potential of the huge market, but China basically incorporates you into its own ecosystem through localisation and makes it its own technology, so in the long term there are difficulties too."