SIM shipments grow 28%

According to SIMalliance, the SIM Total Available Market (TAM) has evolved from 1.9 billion in 2006 to 2.7 billion in 2007. SIMalliance also announced an outlook for 2008 above the 3 billion mark for SIM cards shipped.

An important part of this growth comes from emerging markets:

• India grew from 123 million in 2006 to 194 million in 2007, representing a 58% growth,
• Greater China grew from 332 million in 2006 to 427 million in 2007 , a 29% growth,
• Middle East and Africa grew from 260 million in 2006 to 366 million in 2007, a 41% growth,
• Latin America grew from 159 million in 2006 to 228 million in 2007, a 43% growth.

The migration towards 3G has continued to accelerate with 3G-enabled cards representing 14% of all SIMalliance shipments.

SIMalliance also notes an increase in the average SIM memory size by as much as 12%. In 2007, the average memory size was 53kb in comparison to 47kb the previous year. The good news is that this growth is not limited to mature markets. For instance, in Latin America, the average memory size is 76kb, higher than Western Europe and second only to Japan and Korea.

SIMalliance is the global association of SIM card suppliers. Its members are: Eastcompeace, Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, Incard, Oberthur Card Systems, Prism (a Net1 Company), Sagem Orga, SanDisk, Watchdata and XPonCard. SIMalliance estimates the combined share of its members to be 90% of the TAM.