Govt smart card market to grow by 2017

BANGALORE, INDIA: Due to the growing adoption and migration to the next generation smart national cards, government issued smart card shipments are set to grow to Rs. 76.5 crore in 2017, as per a research done by ABI Research.

The market research firm said that, National ID cards will account for the lion's share of shipments, rising from 37 percent in 2012 to 50 percent in 2017. The adoption and migration to the next generation credentials in Poland, Russia, Brazil, France, China and Indonesia has been the major growth driver for smart card shipments.

As per ABI's projections, all the government projects will use high end microcontroller and pure contactless or dual interface technology which will improve security and enable multi application functionality.

"For the overall government ID market, the factors of growth paired with higher-end adoption will be music to IC and smart card vendors ears. Not only are market volumes growing, but also revenues will be maintained at a high level with next to no reduction in ASP's as governments look to adopt the most up-to-date and advanced smart card technology. The complexity of projects and the online/offline nature of multi-application creates further revenue streams for vendors through management and maintenance of software and services as partnering integrators," said research analyst, Phil Sealy.

"The Indonesian national ID card is of particular interest, due to its anticipated speed to market. State-owned PNRI (the national ID smart card supplier) formed a consortium consisting of L1 Identity, for biometric capture devices, system integration from Biomorf Lone Indonesia, IT hardware from HP, and ICs from NXP.

All involved are well-established and recognised industry leaders ensuring quick turnaround and production of a product at the highest level. In just under 12 months the biometric enrolment of 100 million <10 crore> citizens was completed," explains Practice director John Devlin.