Consolidation is on the cards

Electronics Times, Feb 15, 1999

SJB picked up on this theme: "We expect to see further mergers, particularly in North America, where so much European investment in card producing capacity has taken place in recent years and where there has been so little movement in the market."

As a result, any analysis of market trends can tend to exclude extensions to functionality. Smartcards are getting, yes, smarter, but market growth will, for now, depend on a settling of ownership and control issues.

*The Smart Card Value Chain 1998-2003 is published by Dataquest, tel: 0171 316 0001, fax: 0171 316 0002, e-mail: ukinfo@datamonitor. The Smart Card 1999 is published by SJB Research, tel: 01458 253344, fax: 01458 253366.

European smartcard market by volume (millions of cards) 1998-2002

                        1998     2002     Annual
                                          growth (%)

Public telecoms          585      712         5
Retail                    16       57        38
University                 5       14        29
Government               0.2     0.45        22
Health                   130      310        24
Transport                  5       16        34
Banking                   92      400        44
Multi-application          0       19       236
Total                    833     1529        16

Source: Datamonitor
European smartcard market by value ($m) 1998-2002

                        1998     2002     Annual
                                          growth (%)

Public telecoms          585      687        4
Retail                    70      198       30
University                25       48       18
Government                 9       20       22
Health                  1733     3637       20
Transport                 28       74       28
Banking                  981     3699       39
Multi-application          0      432      191
Total                   3432     8797       27

Source: Datamonitor
Unit costs ($) 1998

Market                  Unit
                        cost

Public telecoms            1
Retail                   4.4
University                 5
Government                46
Health                  13.3
Transport                5.6
Banking                 10.7

Source: Datamonitor