Of course, our industry has to play its role in this trend. Our customers are already getting involved in resource saving projects. For instance, solar phones are already available from some handset vendors, and are quickly adopted by mobile network operators, and of course, by end customers. In many rural areas in developing countries, there is no permanent reliable electricity supply that would allow to charge a cellphone. Using solar energy is not only a way to save fossil energy, but also a way to improve subscribers use of the service. This is especially important as the next billion of mobile phone subscribers will come from developing countries, where, very often, electricity is costly and its supply unreliable. The first solar-powered handset, the « Solar Guru » was released by Samsung, and marketed first in India, last June (cf. Smart Insights Weekly #09-25). When ZTE launched its own model last August, with Safaricom in Kenya, the first batch sold out in a few weeks.

The mobile phone industry has become the world’s largest consumer electronics sector by volume. So any improvement in this industry will have a major impact. More than 1 billion phones are sold globally each year, which requires the use of sales boxes, add-ons and tons of raw materials. An average mobile user is responsible for around 25 kg of C02 emissions per year, according to Juniper Research, a collective total of 93 megatons of CO2 globally as of the end of 2008.

Our part of the global mobile communication ecosystem, even with 2.9 billion SIM cards shipped in 2008, remains small. However, these 2.9 million cards represented a weight of 11 600 tons that needed to be shipped from production premises to the end user. Smart card industrialists are taking steps to make our production process greener, our shipment process more economical, and our products more eco-friendly. Several industrialists in our industry, including Oberthur, or Sagem Orga, have taken steps reduce the environmental impact. Initiatives include production organization close to delivery location, reduction of size and weight of deliveries, reduction of packaging and use of environmentally friendly materials, reduction of waste and raw material consumption, … For instance, Sagem Orga recently developed a new offer consisting in delivering directly SIM modules, rather than a full ISO SIM card, 90% of which is immediately discarded by the end user.

Thierry Spanjaard

Chief Editor

Smart Insights