Gemplus reinforces its ID&Security Business Unit with new Heads of Sales in EMEA

Jean-Marie Giraudon and Pierre Cassan to lead EMEA sales for the Enterprise Security and Government sectors

Luxembourg, 21 October 2004, Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world's leading provider of smart card based solutions, announced the appointment of Jean-Marie Giraudon as Vice President of sales, EMEA for the Enterprise Security and Pierre Cassan as Vice President of EMEA sales for the government sector.

Jean-Marie, with over 15 years of experience in the security world, will be responsible for growing our activities in the enterprise security market, which is currently experiencing strong growth in Europe. Coming from EGS, a company he co-founded, he specializes in IT consulting and security solutions using smart card technology, where he managed large-scale projects with partners, such as HP and IBM.

Pierre brings 25 years of experience of complex identity solutions throughout the world. He was General Manager of Bundesdruckerei International for five years, and before that Director of International Operations in the Identity and Security department of Sagem and Morpho Systèmes. Prior to this he was responsible for large ID projects in the security department of Thales Defense.

Jacques Seneca, Executive Vice President, ID & Security Business Unit, Gemplus, said, "We are continually aligning our organization with the market demand. Jean-Marie and Pierre have proven track records in solutions for Identity and Security, which will serve to strengthen and reinforce our existing capabilities. It is with great pleasure that I welcome them to the team at Gemplus."

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.