 Gemplus announces new President for Latin America
Michel Canitrot appointed President for Gemplus Latin
America as smart card market expands
Luxembourg, 1 October 2004, Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext:
LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world's leading provider of smart card
based solutions, is pleased to announce the appointment of Michel Canitrot as
President of Gemplus, Latin America, reporting to Philippe Vallée, Executive
Vice President.
This appointment is part of Gemplus' strategy to maximize the geographical
opportunities for smart card development and enhance its regional presence.
Michel, 58, brings many years of experience in Sales and Marketing
management. He most recently held the position of Senior Vice President within
the Telecom Business Unit, with particular responsibilities for Latin America,
EMEA and key accounts.
The Latin American market holds many opportunities for the smart card
industry, with the launch and uptake of GSM networks for wireless, the migration
to EMV in the banking sector and the development of smart card-based transport
systems. Gemplus already has a strong presence with manufacturing facilities in
Cuernavaca, Mexico, where production of Gemplus' public telephony cards is
centralized, and strong sales teams in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil
(Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo). Michel will be based in Mexico.
Prior to joining Gemplus in 1998, Michel held senior positions notably within
Matra group and Nortel.
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: Gartner-Dataquest (2004), Frost & Sullivan,
Datamonitor.). It has sold over 4 billion smart cards.
With security at its core, and 2400 patents produced by its innovative R&D
team, Gemplus delivers a wide range of portable, personalized solutions in areas
including Identity, Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking,
Retail, Transport, Healthcare, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, and access
control.
Gemplus' revenue in 2003 was 749 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com
For more information, contact:
Jane Strachey
Gemplus
Office : +33 (0)442364661
Mobile : +33 (0)676493593
jane.strachey@gemplus.com
Vanessa Clarke
Account Director, Edelman
Tel: +44 20 7344 1349
Mobile +44 7730 989 698
vanessa.clarke@edelman.com
©2004 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.
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