Australian and New Zealand Smart Card Enterprises Experience Slower Growth

While the smart card market in Europe and certain Asian countries is witnessing steady growth, developments in the Australian and New Zealand markets have been less prominent. To strengthen the demand, the Australian and New Zealand market participants must overcome hurdles such as higher costs (compared to other automatic identification and data capture technologies), absence of proper standards, and the issue of insufficient interoperability across systems and boundaries.

This Frost & Sullivan research service provides an overview of and an outlook for the smart cards markets in Australia and New Zealand, detailing unit shipment forecasts by region and segments as well as providing market share analyses. Application wise the major verticals are telecommunications, government and healthcare, transit and financial. This information is valuable for both large and small market participants seeking to position themselves for maximum return on investment.

Europay, Mastercard, Visa (EMV) Conformity to Drive the Smart Card Markets

"The move toward EMV compliance is set to strengthen the smart cards markets - particularly the financial segment - in the Australian and New Zealand regions by 2006, with the final deadline fixed at 2008," notes the analyst of this research. "In New Zealand, banks and retailers’ associations are advising the country’s retailers to speed-up their adoption of point-of-sale (POS) terminals that support EMV."

The usage of smart cards in Australia and New Zealand is likely to rise once the banks sign the EMV mandate. With New Zealand making a total move toward EMV in the next 2 to 3 years, Australia is also likely to accept it completely. The technology also needs government approval for functioning as a viable business-to-business (B2B) solution, serve as credit cards and identification tools, and for securing IT networks and information.

Telecommunications Contribute Chiefly to New Zealand Markets

"In New Zealand, telecommunications is the main end user vertical, with a 90.0 percent share of the unit shipments and transport/security and access control comprising the remaining 10.0 percent," highlights the analyst. "In Australia telecommunications is benefiting greatly from changes in the cellular phone network infrastructure, with a sizeable contribution coming from the global system for mobile (GSM) cellular phone market."

Overall, the market condition is likely to improve with the unit shipment of smart cards growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.3 percent from 2004 to 2009. During the same period the usage in the telecommunications segment is set to go up at a CAGR of 9.4 percent. The demand from government and healthcare segment for government related projects and hospitals respectively and transit segment, especially from electronic toll collection (ETC) and transport ticketing systems- and university students is further set to boost the market demand. The financial application is expected to be the key segment by 2006 with the move towards EMV compliance.