Europe’s largest consumer electronics trade fair, IFA, is getting underway in Berlin with German’s appetites for gadgets holding up strongly.

That brought out manufacturers and trade bodies in force, hoping to better last year’s order volume, which was more than three billion euros.

The organisors had to build additional stands in an extra hall to accommodate the record nearly 1,300 companies and associations taking part.

A spokesman for the organisers, Michael Hofer, said TVs are the big stars: “HDTV is, of course, a hit. In addition, we have 3D this year. It was already announced last year for television, but now it is also for still cameras and video camcorders. That is the direction into which the industry is moving.”

The German technology industry association Bitkom said sales there will be higher than last year, which was a record.

Worldwide it is estimated 228 million TVs will be sold in 2010 – 4.2 million of them will be 3D, that is around two percent of all liquid crystal display screens.

And for consumer there is good news – prices should fall as companies over-anticipated sales and have made too many TVs.

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