Written by The international technology provider Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) has been selected as the winner of Frost & Sullivan’s ‘2011 ICT Europe Smart Cards Service Company of the Year’ award. The annual award is conferred on a European company that has shown excellence in the development of hardware and software for smartcards over the previous year. Presented by the market research company Frost & Sullivan and an independent panel of distinguished international industry executives, the award recognizes G&D’s exemplary performance and strategic excellence in 2010/2011.
The contenders for the award were evaluated on the basis of innovation and technological leadership, portfolio diversity and go-to-market strategy. “Giesecke and Devrient demonstrated great success in 2010. They attained key wins with strategies including product and service innovation, customer focus and robust business models. The company has actively participated in fostering the adoption and standardization of emerging technologies such as NFC and M2M communications, fields in which a majority of innovations have occurred”, says Jean-Noel Georges, Global Program Director – Research Manager, ICT-SmartCard at Frost & Sullivan.
“The boom in the mobile Internet and smartphones has led to profound changes in the smartcard industry which are neatly summed up by abbreviations such as NFC, LTE and M2M,” says Michael Kuemmerle, Member of the Management Board and Group Executive, Mobile Security at Giesecke & Devrient. “We are delighted to receive this award because it rewards our efforts to bring about innovation and offers independent recognition of our ability to deal with technology shifts across different industries all over the world.”
NFC stands for Near Field Communication. NFC is a key technology in the move towards new services such as mobile payment solutions for cell phones. LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a wireless standard that offers very high download speeds of up to 100 Mbps. M2M (Machine-to-Machine) refers to the automated exchange of information between terminal equipment such as machines and appliances.
Giesecke & Devrient’s success is also evident from its sales growth, with revenues in its Cards and Card Services segment climbing by 19.7 percent to reach 705 million euros in fiscal 2010.