SIM Rebound Continues.(subscriber identity module cards)(Industry Overview)

Major smart card vendors reported their subscriber identity module card shipments again increased during the second quarter of 2003, although currency fluctuations and sustained weak pricing didn't make for rousing financial results.

Gemplus International, for example, reported a drop in revenue and continued losses for the second quarter, but noted a positive trend in its main stock-in-trade, SIM cards for mobile phones.

The vendor says it shipped more than 42 million SIMs for the quarter, up nearly 18% from the same period in 2002. And Gemplus shipped a greater percentage of high-end SIMs, which helped alleviate the continuing fall in prices besetting vendors. About 9% of the SIMs Gemplus shipped to GSM operators during the quarter carried 64 kilobytes of memory or were destined for use in higher-speed, third-generation …