France-based Gemalto today announced that it is one of the suppliers for China Telecomâs âmassiveâ rollout of NFC SIMs, though it did not offer any details on price or quantities of cards it will ship.
As NFC Times reported last month, Gemaltoâs bid was the lowest or one of the lowest among six vendors that received contracts to supply cards for China Telecomâs 50 million NFC SIM tender. But Gemalto was not selected for an even larger tender awarded this spring by Chinaâs largest telco, China Mobile. The bids on the China Mobile tender featured even lower prices, and that might be one reason Gemalto didn't win a contract.
The other five suppliers of NFC SIMs for China Telecom are Chinese vendors. China Telecom disclosed names of the vendors it had selected for supply contracts around early April.
Hello Dan,
I think finally the Chinese operators realize using NFC will give them an edge against Alibaba's Alipay. You can see the government banning Alibaba's bar code and virtual credit card businesses because of fear of un-secure cloud transactions. Alibaba is using sound wave technology as well, but as they IPO in North America, for sure they would try to bring Alipay business to the USA. Bar Code proximity payments are not banned in the USA, even CHina Unionpay wants to actively promote mobile payments in the USA market. The State Owned Enterprises are fighting a tough battle for dominance in the mobile payment landscape of China.
Thanks,
Karl J. Weaver