This year's CeBIT, running to March 16 in the northern German city of Hanover, is expected to draw 500,000 visitors and help trigger renewed high-tech excitement after a lengthy slump.

About 6,270 companies from 69 countries - including a record number of Asian firms - have descended on the fair ready to spotlight new inventions they hope will capture consumers' imaginations.

A fair spokesman said the first day had seen strong attendance with large crowds seen throughout the cavernous 27 exhibition halls.

Among the highlights are next generation mobile phones that allow music downloads and include built-in color televisions, and other "convergence" products - devices that roll IT, telecommunications and consumer electronics features into all-in-one gizmos.

The European Information Technology Observatory (EITO) has forecast a 4.3-percent boost in sales this year in the global IT and telecommunications sector to 2.04 trillion euros (2.68 trillion dollars), fueled largely by powerhouses such as China and India.

Although the CeBIT is dominated by German firms, Asian companies are out in force. Taiwan sent 777 firms to chilly northern Germany, China was represented by 310 and South Korea by 202.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who took a tour of the sprawling fairgrounds early Thursday, told executives at a pre-fair gala that Germany was counting on the high-tech sector to help revive its sputtering economy.

"The information and communication industry has become an important growth engine for Germany and the global economy," he said.

The German computer, telecommunications and new media association BITKOM said on the eve of the event that the industry was finding its footing again after three dismal years prompted by the collapse of the so-called new economy.

"Our sector has left the stormy years behind it and has grown up," said the CEO of German software giant SAP, Henning Kagermann.

"By the weekend at the latest, we'll see hordes of consumers storming the halls to see what the latest cell phones can do and which cool gadgets give us access to music, video and games wherever we are."

German high-tech sales are tipped to rise 3.4 percent in 2005 to 135.2 billion euros and another 3.1 percent in 2006, with the World Cup soccer championship expected to boost consumer electronics sales.

Europe's biggest personal computer manufacturer, Fujitsu Siemens, set the upbeat tone by posting record sales of roughly six billion euros for the business year ending March 31.

US Software behemoth Microsoft announced a tie-up with Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems unit to offer IT services to small and medium-sized companies.

The world's top chip maker Intel and Europe's biggest Internet service provider T-Online unveiled a digital entertainment alliance to deliver music and films via several different distribution channels.

Among the other innovations on display were new, bigger HDTV television sets with razor-sharp picture quality, potential successors to the DVD and telephone services via the Internet at rock-bottom prices.

Although the days of freshly minted Internet millionaires arriving at the fair in private helicopters are long over, executives here said a new sense of pragmatism and orientation toward consumers instead of the stock market had done the sector good in the long run.

"The restart button has been pressed, the systems are fired up," Hanover's daily Neue Presse wrote in an editorial Thursday on the fresh start in the industry.

"The digital future is no longer a dream, it's become everyday reality."

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