New smart card projects undertaken in 2002 will be worth $1.5bn, according to market analyst, Datamonitor. The same research firm reported last February that Europe represented three quarters of the global market, but the US remains unsure about the new technology, accounting for only 0.8%. The report adds that the smart card market is complicated by the fact that the technology is slowing down so that, increasingly, services are the differentiating factor between companies. Half of all investment in the next three years will be channeled into systems integration. Datamonitor predicts that the health and transport markets will account for 90% of the total investment in new projects. University and government fields will grow quickest, reflecting the opportunity for security use, while telecommunications will stagnate, as the sector is a mature one with most of the cards already in existence.
