Just Under 3 Billion SIM Cards Shipped in 2008

SIMalliance, the global association of SIM card manufacturers has reported that global SIM card shipments exceeded 2.9 billion units during 2008, with strong demand from the emerging markets of India, China, Asia Pacific and Latin America contributing to a 29 per cent increase on shipments over the previous year.

Critically for service providers and handset manufacturers looking to add functionality and extend service offerings, the power of the SIM grew in 2008. On average, memory size increased by 11 per cent on 2007 figures, while the number of cards shipped with a S@T browser had a growth rate of 22 per cent.

3G enabled SIM cards represented 14 per cent of total shipments in 2008.

Added to this, SIMalliance has been working with the mobile value chain throughout 2008 to maximise current investments in SIM card technologies. Meanwhile, its working groups including S@T, MarkUp Language, Interoperability, Mobile NFC, Smart Card Web Server and OTA & Handset Asia have helped facilitate a unified approach and speeded the development and adoption of advanced SIM technology for next generation mobile environments, architectures and services.

On the web: SIMalliance

SIMalliance members are: Datang, Eastcompeace, Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, Incard, Oberthur Card Systems, Prism, Sagem Orga, SanDisk, Watchdata and Wuhan Tianyu.

Posted to the site on 21st April 2009