Singapore-based NovoFlex today said it expects to garner USD 20 million revenue from the Indian market as it rolls out new technology, sAiL, which simplifies the assembly process of smart cards.
According to PTI, the company has tied up with smart card maker Eastcompeace India, which delivered more than 200 million SIM cards in 2016. NovoFlex CEO Eric Ng said that 2018, the smart chip (technology) will be rolled out in all Indian states, as well as in various parts of the globe. We are also working on partnership with one of the major French smart card manufacturer, who intends to use these products to gain market share in India.
The most compelling reason for expecting wide adoption “is the sizable cost reduction that the technology enables – up to 40 per cent of any smartcard”, he added. Eric said the technology also provides the highest security available in smartcards to almost any devices or application. “And when intelligent objects in IoT devices connect together, the need for secured identity is paramount,” he added.
The process for the new technology — Secure Authenticable Identification Laminates (sAiL) — requires less gold to be utilised across all process steps, leading to savings for card manufacturers.
Also, the process is compatible with existing card manufacturing machines, so ‘sAiL’ can be immediately integrated into current smart card assembly processes, he explained. Eric said the smart chip market in India grew at 18 per cent in 2016, one of the highest in the world.
The smart chip market size for telecom alone is about 1 billion. “By December 2018, NovoFlex is looking to generate a revenue of USD 20 million USD from the Indian market,” Eric said. He said sAiL-SIM products have been tested in three countries and piloted it in India as well.
“(About) 12 million modules have been shipped using this technology in India, and this number is fast growing. Considering the significant reductions that this technology enables, we expect all the major smartcard manufacturers to form partnerships with us,” he added. He said the company hopes to bag about 10-15 per cent market share in India in 2018.
