Gemplus Deploys Airtime Reload Solution for Celtel Kenya’s Prepaid Customers

LUXEMBURG and GSM Africa – 30, November 2005 – Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 – GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world’s leading provider of smart card solutions, announces the successful deployment of a flexible mobile top-up solution for Celtel Kenya’s prepaid customers.

The “Electronic Airtime Distribution” application, developed by Gemplus, was deployed in March 2005. Since then, over 11,000 SIMs have been deployed with an average of 100,000 reload transactions carried out per day. Within 3 months, electronic airtime vending has become the preferred channel and now represents 60% of airtime selling (Source: Celtel 2005).

This application responded well to Celtel’s requirements as it is a secure solution limiting fraud while addressing their country specific logistics. A SIM-based “Mobile Point of Sale” is given to scratch card resellers as a “Street Reselling Solution”, which enables the wholesaler/resellers incentive system and network hierarchy. Over 11,000 dealers have been recruited and are currently trading in the electronic top-up system throughout the country.

“With mobile phone handsets transformed to point of airtime sale terminals, the mobile top-up distribution system effectively enhances accessibility and convenience by bringing services to our subscribers' doorstep”, said G.Atayi, CMO Celtel Kenya.

Subscribers looking for airtime top-up only pay for the amount they want, which is then electronically loaded to their account in real time. To reload an account, the dealer browses through the SIM menu, selects the “Recharge” option and then chooses the amount. Once done, the user enters his phone number and PIN code. The requested airtime is sent electronically to the customer's number and an SMS is sent to confirm the successful reload and to indicate the new amount of credit.

Christian Marc, Marketing Director, Gemplus Africa, explained “With the 98% of Celtel’s customers being prepaid, we needed to find a solution that would provide increased convenience for users and accessibility in remote areas. We needed to reduce fraud while avoiding heavy investment. This solution has proven to be very effective with three million reload transactions carried out per month.”

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 2005, Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor). It has sold over 5.5 billion smart cards.

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 2004 was 865 million Euros.

www.gemplus.com 

For more information

Jane Strachey
Gemplus
Tel: +33 (0)442364661
Email: jane.strachey@gemplus.com 

Johan Alexander
Edelman PR
Tel: +44 (0)20 7344 1285
Email: johan.alexander@edelman.com 


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