ABI's latest forecast on NFC shipments in 2013: growth of 118%

ABI Research estimates the full year 2012 shipments of secure elements to reach 147 million with 125 million enabled handsets being shipped. Growing inclusion of embedded solutions by OEMs will account for the majority of secure elements in 2013 as MNOs seed the market with close to 100 million SWP SIM cards, adds ABI. ABI also estimates NFC-enabled device shipments to reach a minimum of 320 million units across all product categories—an increase of 118% over last year. This will drive the market past the half billion NFC devices in use in 1H13, says ABI. Practice director, John Devlin commented: “This is certainly encouraging after many years of ‘will they, won’t they’. The market has now passed the tipping point and is being further enabled by increased competition across all areas of the market. There are multiple chip vendors offering a range of product alternatives to OEMs in various form factors with security and connectivity specialists all coming to the fore. As a result, attach rates are increasing, devices are reaching market, and service partners – who had been holding back due to lack of devices – are now developing their own innovative use of NFC, bringing new services and NFC applications to market.” On a cautionary note he added: “There remains a stand-off between the business model and value-add being offered by MNOs to targeted business partners. It c...