Asia-Pacific countries are well set for an unprecedented boom in smart cards after the saturation of European and American markets, Claude Dahan, a senior official of French company, Schlumberger, said on Monday.
The growth might take the share in the global market from 33 per cent to 36 per cent in the next couple of years, he said at the inauguration of SmartCards Expo 2003 in New Delhi.
He predicted that microprocessor cards would dominate half of the industry and would pick a 90 per cent market share with SIM cards, Java Cards and EMV (European MasterCard Visa Card) as technology drivers.
Frank X Xu, director, Smart Card Forum of China said its smart card market is bigger than India with 400 million bank cards.
Malaysia was the first country to adopt smart cards for passports and already four million passports had chip embedded in them, Tan Say Jim, MD, IRIS of Malaysia said.
A big untapped market was waiting for technological solutions in India with National ID card, ration cards, driving licence and banking sector being the driver of smart card growth in the country, V S Ramamurthy, secretary, Department of Science and Technology said.
Over 150 companies and more than 110 exhibitors are participating in the three-day event.
