The number of Chinese companies attending Consumer Electronics Show remain less than half that of pre-pandemic level.

The four-day Las Vegas event has 493 Chinese companies participating this year, data from CES website showed.

In comparison, Chinese at CES amounted to 1000 before the Covid-19 outbreak happened in Wuhan, state media outlet Global Times reported at the time.

However, this number was still higher than 210 recorded in the same period of 2021 when CES was hosted online.

This year’s CES event has seen a number of Chinese tech giants absent from the show, such as DJI, the world’s largest consumer drone maker, Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE, two Shenzhen-based telecommunication and smartphone companies. These three companies were not attending because of the Washington’s Enity list that bar American companies from doing business with Chinese companies on the list.

On the other hand, Chinese firms participating CES this year are ones that still have large operations in the US or do significant sales in the market.

Many of China’s tech giants specializing in cutting-edge sectors like artificial intelligence and semiconductors are absent from CES, as they have been the last few years owing to US trade sanctions.

Overall, more companies have shown up at CES this year than in 2022.