After three days of intensive trade fair activity, the 12th International Suppliers Fair (IZB2024) has closed its curtain. With almost 40,000 trade visitors and 843 exhibitors from 33 different nations, IZB 2024 once again achieved great success. Focusing on the key theme “Strengthening Partnerships”, IZB 2024 highlighted the importance of strategic alliances between OEMs and supplier companies. Such partnerships are essential when it comes to overcoming the challenges faced by the global automotive industry in these times of radical change. The fair provided a platform where technological innovations were presented and long-term cooperation models were discussed – both of which will certainly shape the future of the industry. The event placed special focus on knowledge transfer that helps accelerate the process of preparing new technologies for the market.
“The automotive industry is currently facing changes that have global consequences. Topics such as sustainability, decarbonization and digital networking require international cooperation between companies, policymakers and all participants along the entire supply chain. For this purpose, it is crucial to work together on setting standards for the future. IZB 2024 showed that the supplier industry is ready and willing to shape this transformation with innovative solutions,” emphasizes Thomas Krause, spokesperson for the management of Wolfsburg AG, organizer of IZB.
According to Krause, the next IZB 2026 will reveal which innovations discussed at this year’s event have successfully entered serial production.
With its stronger presence as an exhibitor at IZB 2024, Volkswagen AG focused on dialogue. “Our IZB concept was successful: four centers of the Volkswagen Group focused on different topics enabled us to discuss a multitude of potential solutions for central challenges with our partners, and we will continue to advance possible implementations of these solutions after IZB. Our discussions once again emphasized the fact that we all share responsibility – both Volkswagen and its partners in the supplier industry. Only by working together can we make solutions for strengthening the automotive industry a reality, in a sustainable way and as quickly as needed,” concludes Dirk Große-Loheide, member of the Extended Executive Board of Volkswagen AG and member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand.
As for the topics, those involving digitalization are becoming increasingly prominent: two halls formed the thematic cluster “Electronics and Connectivity”. According to the Deloitte Global Automotive Consumer Study 2024, both topics are key criteria when it comes to future purchasing decisions.
IZB 2024 once again reveals a high level of international participation: 40 percent of exhibitors come from outside Germany, with Asian companies – especially from China – represented in slightly greater numbers than at IZB 2022. For the first time, Morocco was represented at the fair this year with one company. Over the past few years, the country has developed into Africa’s largest car manufacturer. In addition to those mentioned, there were stands from clusters such as Hyundai Motor Group, the Turkish manufacturers cluster, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Basque, Indian, Lithuanian clusters as well as many companies dealing with IT solutions in the automotive industry. Also, as never before, large stands of global automotive players such as Continental, Bosch, VW Group, Ericsson, Wolfsburg AG and many others were noticed.
With around 60 percent of German companies, the Federal Republic of Germany is traditionally the largest exhibitor group, with automotive clusters also reflected in the number of exhibitors. Most of them are from North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Lower Saxony. Around 30 companies from the host automotive region Braunschweig-Wolfsburg are exhibiting at the fair.
This year’s IZB highlighted technological innovations and solutions from more than 50 exhibitors, which were summarized and presented in the report “innovations@izb”. This includes 16 world premieres developed in response to the challenges facing the future of mobility, which were presented to the general public for the first time at IZB 2024. A multitude of exhibitors also made maximum use of the IZB Live Stage in hall 4 as an opportunity to present their innovations and premieres. The stage additionally hosted more than 30 expert lectures, panel discussions and keynote speeches on the event’s key topics, namely interior and exterior, electronics and connectivity, powertrain and batteries, and metal, body and chassis. The fair’s keywords that were repeated throughout were: innovations, connectivity, future mobility, new technologies, global, customized production, perfection and the like. At IZB, various topics were intensively discussed, for example new technologies, their rapid integration into development and production processes and, above all, sustainability aspects.
Unfortunately, this year’s IZB 2024 was held without the presence of companies from Bosnia and Herzegovina, given that BiH companies decided not to exhibit at this prestigious fair this year.
