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February 2005 • Volume 10 Number 2
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Member Profile: Gemplus
1. What are Gemplus' main business profile and offerings? Gemplus is the world's leading player in the smart card industry and has sold over five billion smart cards worldwide. Founded in 1988, Gemplus employs more than 5000 people in 37 countries around the world. Our international headquarters is located in Luxembourg, with our North America headquarters in Horsham, Pennsylvania - just outside of Philadelphia. We have the largest R&D team in the industry with internationally renowned researchers in security and cryptography. We are traded on both the NASDAQ as GEMP and Euronext as Sicovam 5768. Our revenue in 2004 was 865 million Euros. With our core focus on security, Gemplus delivers a wide range of solutions in a variety of markets around the world including identity management, wireless telecommunications, banking, retail, transportation, healthcare, public telephony, wireless LAN (WLAN), Pay-TV, e-government, and access control. Our products and services include:
In our Identity & Security business unit, Gemplus leads the way in international government secure ID projects and is a key player in enterprise security. In both sectors, our solutions combine our own expertise in secure smart card solutions, with the close support of leading system integrators. Gemplus has developed solutions for national ID programs in Oman and United Arab Emirates, as well as enterprise security solutions controlling physical and logical access, healthcare, and mass transit. In North America, Gemplus supplies smart card technology, solutions, and services to The Boeing Company, Pfizer, Queens Health, Denver Health, and Microsoft, as well as for several U.S. Federal Government programs, including the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) Phase III implementation. In our Wireless Telecommunications business unit, Gemplus works with more operators in more countries than any other player and has delivered one in two USIMs to the market. We work with over 100 telecom operators worldwide including the three nationwide U.S. operators that utilize smart card technology. In the public telephony sector, Gemplus is the worldwide leader in the sale of smart phone cards with over 3 billion cards sold. In our Financial Services business unit, Gemplus is the fastest growing EMV smart card provider and is involved in every key EMV market around the world. We offer secure and convenient multi-function contact and contactless smart payment technology, as well as traditional magnetic stripe payments cards with innovative card bodies. 2. What role does smart card technology play in supporting Gemplus business? Smart card technology plays a pivotal role in Gemplus' business, as it is quickly becoming the most accepted secure platform for transactions, identification, and authentication around the world. Gemplus' business was founded on smart card technology; however, we recognize the need to go beyond the smart card itself and build solutions and services that leverage the security and flexibility of the smart card platform to address our customers' business and security needs. This includes everything from software development, OTA platform, and management systems to consulting, integration, and personalization. In North America, we are complementing our smart card offering with an innovative portfolio of traditional magnetic stripe payment cards. 3. What trends do you see developing in the market that Gemplus hopes to capitalize on? We see a number of interesting trends in the market, both internationally and domestically. The adoption of smart cards for identification purposes in the public sector is particularly interesting both at the international level, where several countries are deploying or piloting the use of smart cards for national ID projects, as well as in the U.S. Federal Government with HSPD-12 and several agency employee access programs. We are already making significant progress in both of these areas with contracts in Oman and United Arab Emirates, as well as involvement in a number of Federal Government programs, including the TSA's TWIC phase III implementation. We are seeing strong promise in the commercial sector for employee access and identity management based around smart card technology. Companies like Boeing and Pfizer, just to name a few, are turning to smart cards to provision their physical and logical access systems onto one secure credential for increased security, regulatory compliance, and risk management. Similarly, healthcare organizations in the U.S. are looking at smart card technology for HIPAA compliance, a trend we are also watching closely and making progress on with customers like Denver Health and Queens Health and Hospital Authority. We are extremely interested in the SIM card's use in enabling secure and simple access to WLAN. We see a natural fit for the SIM card as the authentication and provisioning tool for WLAN access and are working aggressively to pursue these opportunities with our partners. One of the largest trends we see is the use of smart card technology for contactless payment. Initial consumer response shows high interest and use in the contactless form factor for quick and easy payment. This is certainly an area we are actively pursuing. 4. What obstacles to growth do you see that must be overcome to capitalize on these opportunities? Standardization and end-user acceptance. In many regions around the world, and North America in particular, the smart card is still an emerging technology that is realizing new deployment opportunities every day. With this growth come issues with standardization both within and across market sectors. This is why groups like the Smart Card Alliance are so important, as they help accelerate this process through bringing industry members together for the benefit of the technology. As with any new technology, user acceptance and adoption are critical for success. We have seen users in Europe embrace smart cards for many years now, and more and more people outside of Europe are realizing the benefits of the technology particularly through its use in wireless handsets. We see this momentum picking-up in the next two to three years, particularly with such influential adopters as the U.S. Government and other financial and commercial organizations driving acceptance. But, we recognize changing consumer behavior is a long learning curve and we look forward to beating this challenge with our partners and customers. 5. What do you see are the key factors driving smart card technology in the market? Security and convenience. 9/11 taught everyone how vulnerable we are as a society to outside attacks and that we must be aggressive with our security, access control, and risk management strategies at country ports and borders, at the front door of our office, and at our network/PC log-in screen, etc. Magnetic stripes, traditional badges, and passwords are no longer enough to prevent unauthorized access. Through this realization people turned to smart cards, which have been trusted for secure authentication and fraud reduction for years. Combine this with the convenience of the smart card and its ability to securely manage and provision several applications on one credential - in a trusted form factor, and you have a technology that is unrivalled in the marketplace. 6. How do you see your involvement in the Alliance helping Gemplus become successful? The Smart Card Alliance is today the most respected voice of the smart card industry - providing a vendor-neutral approach to our industry issues. Further to that, the Alliance's many workgroups seek to identify and address trends and issues in the marketplace in a concise and comprehensive way. Smart Card Alliance events - conferences or web-conferences - bring together the decision makers in the North America smart card industry and offer the best educational programs for industry newcomers.
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Smart Card Talk spoke with Ernie Berger, President of Gemplus North America. Mr. Berger oversees all areas of Gemplus' North American business, including the Telecommunications and Identity & Security and Financial Services business units. He is a member of Gemplus' General Committee and reports directly to Alex Mandl, Gemplus' CEO. Mr. Berger brings more than 15 years of experience in the financial services sector with First USA and American Express, where he successfully launched multiple new products, managed national branding campaigns, and grew profitability. At First USA, Mr. Berger served as General Manager and Head of Portfolio Marketing from 1996 to 2000 where he created and launched a new marketing business unit. In his position as Senior Vice President of Marketing for American Express's Small Business Services, he grew sales and profits at over 15% annually. More recently, Mr. Berger was instrumental in the start-up of new business ventures, first with Walker Digital, and then through his own consulting firm, acting as a "start-up CEO." Mr. Berger holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University in New York, and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. 
