Increasing Demand for Anti-Counterfeiting and NFC Technologies Drives Smart Card, Secure IC Shipments to 9B in 2012: ABI Research

ABI Research’s (News - Alert) Smart Card & Secure IC market tracker has revealed that there is a growing demand for secure microcontrollers to enable high levels of security and authentication within the anti-counterfeiting and NFC secure element markets, as well as increasing security within connected devices.

With this rising demand, the previous market data has been revised. New data shows that shipment forecasts for 2012 have been increased from 261 million to 540 million units.

As per the research firm’s report, however, the expectations for this quarter’s smart card and secure IC market remain relatively unchanged from the previous quarter. Overall, year-to-year shipment growth for year-end 2012 is projected to achieve double-digit increases of 11.9 percent and 13.4 percent, respectively.

The market study suggests the contactless market is already undergoing growth, driven by continued uptake of dual-interface EMV cards, migration to contactless ID cards, and increasing penetration of NFC into handsets.

As a result, from 2011 to 2012, ABI Research expects contactless shipments to grow 29.9 percent for ICs and 24.4 percent for smart cards. The report suggests that tipping point for contactless growth is around 2014 to 2015, which coincides with the completion of some large scale projects within the government ID and payments market.

“The rapid increase in this emerging category presents an increasing opportunity for secure IC vendors,” said research analyst Phil Sealy. “Overall, Samsung (News - Alert) remained the market leader in 2011 with exceptional volumes of SIM cards. The expanding use of these products outside of traditional smart cards presents NXP, Infineon and STMicroelectronics (News - Alert) the opportunity to close the market share gap as this is an area where they been quick to develop products.”

According to ABI Research, this market study focuses on the collection of primary data from leading manufacturers of smart cards and secure ICs. The data includes the installed base, annual shipments and revenue of smart cards and smart card ICs. 

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