phone cards

EuroSmart, the smart card supplier alliance, has forecasted in Nov 2006 that the global IC card (including phone cards) shipment in 2006 would increase 27％ to 3.285 billion and will reach 3.7 billion pieces in 2007 and this forecast counted the figures of Chinese 2nd-generation ID card (including phone cards) and public traffic card for the first time. According to the statistics of the Smart Card Society of China Information Industry Trade Association (SCS of CIITA), the shipment of China IC card (including phone cards) was about 712 million pieces in 2005, up by 26.5％ compared to the year of 2004, however the shipment value dropped 14.1％ to RMB 4.332 billion as the decreased price especially slump of SIM card price, which were caused by more intensive market competition in China IC card (including phone cards) market in the year of 2005. The statistics of SCS of CIITA show, the issue volume of China IC card (including phone cards) has jumped from 20 million in 1996, the first year of gold card project, to 451 million in 2005, increased by 21.3 times. Despite of SIM card shipment accounting for more than half of China total IC cards shipment in recent years, its annual issue rate is the lowest, accounting for only 40％, which results in the overall issue rate of China IC cards (including phone cards) rather low, sharing only about 60％. We believe that as the issue growth of the 2nd-generation ID card, and the increase of the IC card in other application fields, the issue rate of China IC card (including phone cards) will rise to more than 75％ in the year of 2007.