Middle East's second annual Digital Consumer Channel Event successfully concludes in Fujeirah

The event brought together more than 45 vendors and over 130 representatives from over 110 retailers for IT and digital consumer products in the MEA and CIS regions.

Inaugurated by Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Saif Al Sharqi, Chairman, Fujeirah e-Government, DCC MEA saw close to 1000 one-on-one meetings in the course of two afternoons using their unique online booking system and the recently introduced "DCC Post Office" messaging system. Prior to the start of the event, over 700 personal meetings between vendors and senior retailers had been registered through the special interactive web site and around 300 more meetings were set up on site over the course of the two and half day event.

"Leading retailers and retail distributors including Carrefour, CompuMe, Radio Shack, and Panda returned once again this year to attend the event along with other major retail players like Jarir Book Store, Extra, and Geant, that attended the event for the first time this year,"

said Farouk Hemraj, co-founder of Distree Events.

"Our effective messaging system and personalised service helps to facilitate additional meetings with the emphasis on helping our vendor partners and retailers to maximise this opportunity to grow their business."

The event is supported by AMD and Toshiba as Platinum sponsors, supported by Logitech and Panasonic as Gold sponsors, and Hewlett-Packard and Palm One as the silver sponsors. Lexmark and Mobility provided technical support including printers and wireless networking. Gfk provided research information for the conference.

Retailers attending DCC-MEA cover the full spectrum of the digital consumer channel including computer chain stores, mobile chain stores, photo equipment stores, electrical specialists, mass merchants, hypermarket chains and independent outlets.

"Our research has consistently shown us that senior decision-makers greatly prefer attending focused and private events like DCC-MEA because it offers them the perfect combination of the privacy and comfort of a high-level conference and the breadth of a trade show," pointed out Frederic Simard, co-founder of Distree Events. "We remove all the organisational and logistical burdens, leaving both the vendors and the retailers free to concentrate on what they do best - focus on business."

During the closing gala dinner, retailers voted live for various vendors/distributors (representing vendors) for their products and presentations.

The next event, Digital Business Channel Middle East & Africa (DBC MEA) scheduled to be held from 18 to 21 September 2006 is also an annual event held for the second year and addresses the needs of the corporate and business channel.