While it's not a major leap, results from an independent audit reveal that attendance to the 2010 International CES was up 12% from the year prior.

The audit, conducted by Veris Consulting LLC, confirms that a total of 126, 641 industry members attended the trade show, which took place January 7-10 in Las Vegas, NV. In all, 2,500 companies from around the world exhibited their wares, including a record 330 new exhibitors. A total of 20,000 new products and technologies were revealed across 1.4 million square feet.

There were 24,000+ international attendees from 136 countries, representing an 8% increase in global attendance. This includes those traveling from Canada, as well as countries like Korea, Japan, China, Mexico, UK, Taiwan, France, Brazil, and Germany.

According to Veris, the company counts only exhibit space sold in its figures, not including hallways or bartered spaces. In terms of head count, each attendee is counted only once.

Forty-five per cent of attendees were senior level executives, director level and above, on par with last year. Presidents, CEOs and/or business owners made up 20%; and one-third deemed themselves final decision makers for their respective companies. More than 12,000 retail buyers, 8,000 manufacturers and 3,000 engineers came to the event along with more than 8,500 attendees from the software development/publishing, content development and entertainment industries, a 41% increase over last year.

More than 8,400 attendees represented companies with more than US$500 million in total annual sales, nearly double the previous year.

On the press side, more than 5,000 press, bloggers and financial and industry analysts were in attendance.

The 2011 International CES is scheduled to run January 6-9 in Las Vegas, NV.

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