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| Smarticware AB |
| The Smart Card Market – Smarticware View |
The smart card market is one of the most intriguing emerging high-tech markets for new developments. While there is a significant growth potential both in terms of volumes and required characteristics, the major players are to a large extent locked into old technology processes. This is due to the impact of installed base and the stability and inertia of established industry standards and operating infrastructures. This creates an opportunity for new actors who are able to bridge over the potential tension in the market dynamics by providing break-through developments that combine high-end characteristics with attractive pricing or other advantages of scale.
Today’s growing need for public and private use of smart cards with integrated chips is linked to two major areas of use: security and telecommunications. The area of application for the world’s most secure devices has greatly expanded over the last years. The main market segments are as follows:
Security: This growing market has a real need for a new generation of smart cards with increased memory capacity for expanded use of different multi-function security applications. Smart cards in this segment are ID cards and emerging passport cards.
Telecommunications: A growing market that makes use of SIM Cards. There is a real need for a new generation of SIM cards with increased memory for extended use of all kinds of multi-function applications and for online implementation and updating of those applications by mobile teleoperators.
Biometrics: This market has expanded fast during the last two years. The use of biometric applications for identification requires a new generation of smart cards with high capacity to support e.g. 3D imaging technologies.
Finance: A new generation of smart cards with more capacity will facilitate the implementation of several finance applications and storage of finance information. The smart cards in this market are the bank cards.
Healthcare: This market has been expanding during the last two years and still is. There is a need to store more healthcare information, including images. Smart cards in this market are the healthcare cards.
Others: Large capacity smart cards are useful in the high-end of most types of smart card applications. The typical application flavours in this segment are library cards, university/campus cards, travel cards, etc.
Smarticware technology is application independent and thus applicable to all major segments of the smart card application market.
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