70% of financial cards have chip – global outlook buoyant

Adoption of more expensive chip cards continues to drive global card growth with 70% of all financial cards now having a chip, according to the International Card Manufacturers Association’s (ICMA) release of its 2016 Global Card Market and Personalization and Fulfillment Statistics Reports.

 Global card manufactured globally by segment (Million)

The new research report also revealed that chip cards represented 88.6% of revenue for cards globally manufactured in 2016, according to data from ICMA, a global trade association for card manufacturers,

 Global card manufactured market segment ($ Millions)

personalizers, issuers and suppliers.

ICMA’s comprehensive reports — which quantified the market size that included $27.4 billion total card industry revenue, equating to the production of 35.4 billion cards in 2016 — are a source of valuable card industry data generated from primary and secondary research and statistical modeling created by Al Vrancart, ICMA founder emeritus and industry advisor.

“The global card industry continues to provide growth opportunities in several geographic regional and vertical markets,” Vrancart said. “The outlook for 2017 and beyond is for continued moderate global dollar growth and buoyant card units.”

The reports showed 0.8% global card unit growth to 35.4 billion cards manufactured with $19.8 billion in revenues, representing a 3.1% dollar growth last year. In addition, there was $7.55 billion worth of personalization and fulfilment services for a total of $27.35 in revenue in 2016.

The reports examined five regional markets: North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific. Within these regions, the reports analyzed card units manufactured in 12 vertical market segments:  Prepaid Phone, SIM Mobile Phone, Financial, Gift, Government/Health, Retail and Gas, Transportation, Loyalty and Promotional, ID and Membership, Access Control, Unprinted Blanks and Other.

Highlights from the card market reports included:

• Asia Pacific is No. 1 with 14.15 billion cards produced with 5.1% unit growth and $9.15 billion revenue with 2.7% dollar growth during the prior year.
• North America is No. 2 in units with 9.31 billion cards manufactured and No. 3 in dollars at $3.47 billion with 6.7% growth driven by continued chip card penetration.
• Europe ranks No. 2 in dollars at $4.61 billion and No. 3 in units at 5.9 billion cards with growth of 2.6% in dollars and 2.1% in units.
• SIM cards make up the largest dollar market at $6.53 billion and the third largest unit market at 5.4 billion cards.
• Financial cards make up the second largest unit market and dollar market at 5.5 billion cards and $5.1 billion.
• Government Health cards are the third largest dollar market at $3.2 billion and fifth in units at 3.2 billion cards.
• The global personalization and fulfillment market processed 29.8 billion cards for $7.55 billion.

The global card manufacturing market is valued at $19.8 billion and the personalization and fulfilment services market is valued at $7.55 billion, making the overall global card industry a $27.4 billion market.

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