 SIM Awareness Increases Among U.S. Mobile Phone Users
Results from Gemplus’s U.S. SIM Card Consumer Survey Highlight Cell Phone User Preferences
Luxembourg, Dallas, Texas – October 16, 2003 – Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 – GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world’s leading provider of smart card solutions, today reports the results of its U.S. SIM Card Consumer Survey. The survey was conducted in 2003 to gauge the U.S. consumer awareness of SIM cards and to identify trends in SIM card adoption.
Three years ago, 6% of US mobile phone users had SIM cards in their mobile phones. Today, more than 30 million U.S. residents (20%) have one, and this number is rapidly growing with the adoption of SIM cards by various operators, including AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless. According to Gemplus’s 2003 U.S. SIM Card Consumer Survey, SIM cards have already gained 39% awareness among mobile phone users in the U.S. Only 20% of U.S. mobile phone users, however, understand that SIM cards are smart cards.
Gemplus’s U.S. SIM Card Consumer Survey indicates that mobile phone users rank customer service features as the most appealing, giving priority rating to applications that send automatic notification of service problems (rated 7.8/10) and that enable self-care (6.5/10).
Mobile phone users ranked the ability to easily transfer phone numbers between handsets (5.8/10) and the use of larger phone books (5.7/10) third and fourth respectively. 78% of mobile phone users said they would be interested in using SIM cards to easily transfer their phone books from between handsets, while 69% said they would like to use their mobile phones during international trips. Changing ring tones and text messaging ranked fifth and sixth respectively.
As the top provider of SIM cards in the U.S., Gemplus helps operators maximize the security, convenience, and flexibility of the SIM card to offer advanced services in a highly competitive environment. Gemplus also provides over-the-air subscription updates and premium SMS (short message services) to deliver news, stock quotes, weather, horoscopes, ring tones, and icons to subscribers. These subscribers request specific content using interactive menus that greatly increase wireless traffic in comparison to service short codes.
To learn more about Gemplus’s SIM card solutions and the U.S. SIM Card Consumer Survey, please visit the Gemplus booth #848 at CTIA Wireless IT 2003 in Las Vegas, Nevada, from October 21-23 and watch our presentation at the security panel on Tuesday, October 21st at 1pm in room 105.
About Gemplus
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP) is the world’s leading player in the smart card industry in both revenue and total shipments (source 2002: Gartner-Dataquest, Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor). Gemplus has the largest R&D team, unrivalled experience, and an outstanding track record of technological innovation.
Gemplus helps its clients offer an exceptional range of portable and personalized solutions that bring security and convenience to people’s lives. These include Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Identity, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, access control, and a wealth of other applications.
Gemplus’s revenue in 2002 was 787 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com
©2003 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus and the Gemplus logo are trademarks and service marks of Gemplus S.A. and are registered in certain countries. All other trademarks and service marks, whether registered or not in specific countries, are the property of their respective owners.
Some of the statements contained in this release constitute forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our or our industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activities, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the forward-looking statements contained in this release include, but are not limited to: trends in wireless communication and mobile commerce markets; our ability to develop new technology, and the effects of competing technologies developed and expected intense competition generally in our main markets; profitability of our expansion strategy; challenges to or loss of our intellectual property rights; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships in our major businesses; our ability to develop and take advantage of new software and services; and the effect of future acquisitions and investments on our share price. Moreover, neither we nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of this release. We are under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after this date to conform such statements to actual results or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated results.
For further information, contact:
Kerry Butler
Gemplus Americas PR Manager
Tel : +1 (215) 390 2840
Email: kerry.butler@gemplus.com
Mostafa Razzak
Edelman- New York
Tel: +1 (212) 704 8245
Email: mostafa.razzak@edelman.com
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