Gemplus is the world leader in smart card solutions
Leading the smart card industry, Gemplus was founded in 1988, at the very start of the development of smart card technology.
They are now active around the world, with 58 Sales and Marketing offices, 6 Research & Development centers, 20 personalization facilities and 11 manufacturing sites.
In total they said to have sold over 5.6 billion smart cards. And In 2005, Gemplus was named the industry leader* for a seventh consecutive year with a 27% market share.
Their major products and services: Memory and microprocessor cards for use in wireless communications SIM cards, and payment systems and in other various applications; A full range of associated software, middleware, and server-based solutions; Consultation, training and support services; Smart card interfaces, readers, and chipsets. These enable a wide variety of secure, portable, personalized solutions in areas like Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Healthcare, Transport, Identity, WLAN, Pay-TV, E-Government and Access Control.
Key figures 5.6 billion: total smart cards supplied 939 million: 2005 revenue
(*: According to Gartner Dataquest's report, May 2005)
For much informations, see http://www.gemplus.com/press/download/in_brief.pdf
The so-called CIA's holdup on Gemplus
Some said in France that the strategic "leading, innovative, and trusted enabler of solutions for secured identification, transactions and communication" would be now headed by US interest since the President and CEO of Gemplus were Alex Mandl 2002. The major shareholder is US (Texas Pacific Group, 25.22%). Souverainists said that Gemplus high technology would be now profiting to CIA and NSA and France would have lost a major strategic piece in the world battle of economic intelligency.
