Gemplus To Invest $20 Million, To Set Up Mfg Centre

The $574 million Singapore-based Gemplus Technologies Asia Pte Ltd, part of French global smart card-based solutions used in pay-per-view TV and cell phones, will invest about $20 million in India.

The Singapore company, which set up a local arm about two years back, has now planned to set up a research and development centre and a smart card manufacturing facility in the country.

Singapore-based sources in Gemplus Technologies told Business Standard that the investment lined up for India is part of the company's strategic growth plans in the Asia region.

Smart card is an insertable credit card-sized device with embedded processor(s) that provides entitlement functions and secure electronic storage for storing decryption keys and digital signatures. Smart cards are used in a host of services, including digital TV broadcasting, access control, electronic commerce, information technology and telecom .

 

The sources said, "The R&D centre is to be located in Bangalore, while search is still on for a site for the manufacturing unit." It is also holding talks with some broadcasters (for smart cards for pay-per-view TV) who beam into South Asia and consider India as one of the biggest markets in the region. Channels like Star Sports, Zee Cinema, Star Movies, ESPN, Discovery Channel, NBC and CNBC, currently viewed in India, are broadcast on digital mode with few of them being pay channels with scrambled signals.

Gemplus Technologies recently announced the appointment of executives in three key positions. The new appointees are Philippe Leblanc, director of technologies; Tye Beng Hong, director of banking business unit and Heidi De-Koning, manager, loyalty

Gemplus is the world's leading provider of plastic smart card-based solutions. The company sells magnetic stripe cards, memory and microprocessor-based smart cards, smart contactless cards, electronic tags and smart objects.

The company also designs and markets software, development tools and readers.

With sales of over $500 million in 1997, it employs more than 3500 persons in nine manufacturing units, four R&D centres and 41 sales and marketing offices located in 27 nations.