Eurosmart keeps being optimistic

Earlier this week, at Trustech, in Cannes, happened the always-awaited presentation of Eurosmart figures and trends. The new chairman of Eurosmart, our industry association, Stefane Mouile, had to collect all his talents to show a positive face when announcing a 3.3% growth in volume for 2017 and 2018. Gone are the days when smart card volumes were growing at a 30% rate very year!

Eurosmart is now positioned as the “voice of the smart security industry” and we know that counting smart cards is no longer the key metric in our industry. The secure transactions industry has been diversifying and is now not only supplying cards in the form of banking cards, SIM cards or ID documents but also all other types of security items such as embedded Secure Elements and IoT modules.

Smart cards remain the bread and butter of our industry. All players, small and large, are on an evolution path to transform us from an industry that consisted in gluing silicon in plastic, into a way more complex value chain where all players have their own weight in providing fully integrated solutions to protect everyone’s identity and assets. Even if semiconductors remain at the base of most solutions, our industry is evolving towards software, systems integration and services.

At the same time, the industry is becoming increasingly complex as the evolutions in business and regulations are opening the value chain to more players. For instance, the enforcement of the PSD2 (Second Payment Service Directive) will destructure the traditional payment value chain, make new business models emerge, and lead new players to enter the secure transactions industry. In the telecom segment, the evolution from the traditional removable SIM towards eSIMs and multiple means to deliver authentication to connection means will also open the business to new players. Identity is evolving from physical to digital and mobile identify, opening an avenue to new entrants in this traditionally protected business.

All these evolutions together make it always harder for an organization like Eurosmart to find metrics that actually reflect the evolution of the industry. There will undoubtedly be more market data presentations in the future, but they may bring different ways to demonstrate our industry remains as fascinating as ever.