Gemplus Launches the "Plastic Fantastic" Range of Innovative Card Bodies
Luxemburg (ots/PRNewswire)
- Gemplus wins ICMA[1] Award for Best Financial Card Design two Years Running
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world's leading provider of smart card solutions, launches its new range of innovative card bodies, "Plastic Fantastic" for the financial services sector. This follows the unprecedented win of the ICMA award for the second year running.
This launch is in recognition of an industry trend in which card issuers are changing the way they address the market. With intense competition coming from new areas, such as supermarkets and other traditionally non-banking organizations, financial institutions have to join in the race for greater brand visibility and differentiate their service offering in order to attract new markets and generate customer loyalty.
Card issuers are recognizing that the key piece of their relationship with their customer is the card itself, which they carry in their wallet and use on average 3-4 times a day. This gives an enormous potential for differentiation, brand visibility and in providing a unique, tailored service. By using the card as a marketing support, they can target their image to specific market segments, such as the 12-25 age bracket, women, young professionals, and more.
The "Plastic Fantastic" range from Gemplus shows the possibilities that the card can offer, from transparent and perfumed cards, tactile cards, 3D and holographic effect cards, thermochromic, glow in the dark and even unusually shaped cards.
Philippe David, Vice President, Business Development, Financial Services, Gemplus, explained, "There is now so much competition in the industry that card issuers such as banks, credit card issuers and retailers are continually looking for ways to set themselves apart. They need to have dedicated offers that appeal to different target audiences and one of the most visual ways to manifest this is through innovative card bodies. This is a trend that Gemplus is well equipped to meet, with its own creative team, plenty of good ideas and some healthy credentials to prove it."
The ICMA 2005 Award: Gemplus won the ICMA Award for the Best Financial Card Design for the second year running. The YAN OI TONG VISA card, created for ICBC Hong Kong, showed water drops on the image of a leaf. This was created using texture varnish, giving height to the artwork.
For more on the Plastic Fantastic range, please visit www.gemplus.com
To download a picture of the award winning card, please visit http://www.gemplus.com/press/photo_library/Products.html
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
[1] International Card Manufacturer's Association
For more information:
Jane Strachey
Gemplus
Tel: +33-(0)442364661
Email: jane.strachey@gemplus.com
Sian Gaskill
Edelman PR Agency
Tel: +44-(0)20-7344-125
Email: sian.gaskill@edelman.com(c)2006 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus, 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.
Contact:
For more information: Jane Strachey, Gemplus, Tel: +33-(0)442364661,
Email: jane.strachey@gemplus.com. Sian Gaskill, Edelman PR Agency,
Tel: +44-(0)20-7344-125, Email: sian.gaskill@edelman.com