China's IC Card market study, 2004-2005

The report described and analyzed the current status and development of China's IC card market, and studied in detail the world's most important 6 IC card chip suppliers and about 50 Chinese manufacturers specialized in IC card chip, COS, card assembly, and IC card related equipments.

According to Eurosmart (European smart card supplier alliance), the shipment of CPU card was 880 million pieces around the world in 2004, up by 31% compared to that of 2003. And it is predicted that the figure will be 1.5 billion in 2005.

The percentage of CPU card kept increasing along with the growth of the total shipment of IC card. In 2003, the shipment of CPU card accounted for 23.4% of the total shipment, while the percentage was 29.4% in 2004, and will be 39.2% in 2005. Though memory card is still mainstream in current global IC card market, CPU card will soon replace memory card and take the dominant position in IC card market due to the higher performance requirements for IC cards.

In 2004, China's IC card market was still one of the fastest growing IC card markets in the world. The shipment of China's IC card was about 563 million pieces in 2004, increasing 1.5 times compared to that of 2000. The shipment volume reached 5.04 billion yuan, increasing 4.32 times compared to that of 2000. This showed that China's IC card not only grew rapidly in quantity, but also leaped in quality. The shipment mainly targeted at telecommunication field, and the shipment for mobile phones and public phones took more than 2/3 of the total shipment; among which, shipment of mobile phone card was over 300 million, breaking the record. The annual shipment of CPU card accounted for 57%, and contactless card took 9%.

Thanks to the ID cards' issuance on an enlarged scale, it is predicted that the IC card shipment in 2005 will be increased by 36.1% compared to the previous year, reaching 766 million pieces; while the shipment volume will reach 9.305 billion Yuan due to the increase of the percentage of high-cost ID cards.

Utilizing the data of Ministry of Information Industry (MII), and considering the plans of Gold Card Project of MII on issuing 2-generation ID card and transferring bank card EMV, and factors like the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Pday Research Center forecasts the shipment and shipment volume of China's IC card from 2006 to 2008. By 2008, China's IC card shipment will reach 1.91 billion pieces, 2.49 times of that of 2005; while the shipment volume will reach 24.73 billion yuan, 2.66 times of that of 2005.

Due to the lag of the development of China's semiconductor industry, IC card chip design is always the weak part of China's IC card industry just as other electronic products. Currently, some important IC card markets are almost dominated by international semiconductor powers like Infineon, Renesas, Philips, ST, etc. China domestic IC card chip design enterprises take small shares, and the technological level and stability of their products are hanging behind. In IC card products, chips take over half of the cost; while card packaging can only gain very few profits.

Considering the information security, 2-generation IC card project must be handed to China domestic enterprises. Thus, foreign enterprises put emphasis on other promising smart card markets. Therefore, in China's IC card market, the competition between foreign enterprises and domestic ones focuses on mobile phone card. And actually the only domestic chip manufacturer that can compete with foreign counterparts is Datang Microelectronics.