IFA 2026: The new rules of consumer tech are being written by China?
The first thing you see when you arrive at Messe Berlin is Haier, the whole facade. A Chinese appliance group welcoming visitors to one of Europe's defining technology shows. That set the tone for the rest of my visit.
I've walked trade fairs for years, first from inside a large multinational and now with Alter Innovation, where part of our team works out of Hong Kong and China. So Chinese presence at IFA was expected, what surprised me was how much it has changed.
Better designed, not just better priced
For a long time the story about Chinese brands in Europe was price and speed. Good enough products, delivered fast, at margins nobody else could match. That story is changing in a big way.
At IFA this year, many of the most impressive stands, the ones with a clear point of view and designed with how you move through the space in mind, were Chinese. centerpiece built something closer to a gallery than a booth, with a curved screen and its cars as the centerpiece. Dreame staged a full living room: sofa, television, projector, and a humanoid robot standing in the middle of it as if it had always lived there.
This is experience design, executed with a confidence I did not see five years ago from Chinese companies.
The branding has moved just as fast. Clear identities, consistent tone, retail spaces that feel designed rather than assembled. A few years ago you could often spot a Chinese brand by what was missing. Today, that impression is not what I got.
Brands that explore beyond their core products
The pattern that struck me most was category stretch. Xiaomi has moved from phones to the home to cars, and presents all of it as one ecosystem. Dreame, which most people know for robot vacuums, showed TVs with its own processor, projectors and robotics. Anker, known for chargers, presented a sleep device. Baseus, another accessories name, had an AI story companion for children.
Many Western brands treat their category as their identity. These companies treat it as a starting point. They build strength in one area, whether manufacturing, supply chain or software, and then ask where else it can travel. It's a different way of thinking about brand, and it dramatically shortens the path from idea to shelf. I am a big fan of human centric design and I saw a lot of human centricity in new product offerings trough the visit.
What I could see beneath the headlines
The official themes were mobility, robotics, consumer electronics and appliances. Accurate, but underneath them three shifts felt more meaningful.
AI is now the label on everything. Almost every stand used it. Sometimes it genuinely changes the product. Often it's a new word for an old feature. For buyers and partners, the real work is understanding how and when AI is adding value.
Robots are entering the home as a promise rather than a product. The humanoids were fun to look at. In my opinion, none are close to something a family would pay for and live with.
Technology is moving into wellbeing and daily rituals: sleep, children, light, sound at home. Smaller design-led brands like Kooduu and Sudio were a reminder that emotion and craft still carry weight in a hall full of specifications.
This is one of the points where we are working with Alter, how technology can bring wellness into consumers.
So where do European brands go from here?
Miele's stand was beautiful and unmistakably Miele. Walking the German and European halls, the quality was there, as it always has been. But quality is now the entry ticket, not the reason to choose. When a challenger looks just as polished, moves faster and competes in five categories where you compete in one, "well made" is no longer enough of an answer.
I don't think the answer is to copy the Chinese model. I see four areas where European brands can still build real distance.
Trust. As cameras, microphones and robots move into our homes, where the data goes will matter more than what the product does. European brands can make privacy and transparency part of the product, not a line in the terms and conditions.
Sustainability. Durability, repair and service over a ten year life are hard to fake and slow to build. With European regulation moving firmly in that direction, this is a genuine head start if it's treated as a promise rather than a compliance exercise.
Focus. Ecosystems are powerful, but they can also feel like noise. There is room for brands that do fewer things with more care and a clearer point of view.
Meaning. Heritage only works when it explains why the product are better today. Many European brands still talk about their history instead of using it as a lever of purpose.
None of these alone are a key to succeed in this new world, and each takes years rather than months. But I believe that the brands that use them as part of the strategy versus just a narrative will be the ones still worth paying more for.
What I took home
IFA used to be where you saw what the big European and Japanese brands had planned for Christmas. This year it felt more like a preview of who will set the rules in consumer tech over the next decade. Some of it is noise. Much of it is directional.
Next month I'm in Hong Kong and Guangzhou for the autumn fairs and the Canton Fair, to see the other side of this story: the factories, suppliers and new brands behind what reached Berlin. More on that soon!
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