Smart Card Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends & Forecasts

Global Smart Card Market Trends and Insights

Contactless EMV Migration in Emerging Asian Economies

Roll-out momentum accelerated in 2024 as Bangladesh and Nepal commissioned local EMV Level 3 test labs that shorten certification cycles and cut issuer costs. China saw a 37% annual rise in contactless transactions, while India logged 42% growth in issuance, figures that reflect the mainstreaming of tap-to-pay and underscore the addressable base for terminal upgrades. Banks frame contactless issuance as a retention lever in overcrowded retail markets, and merchants benefit from faster checkout speeds that lift throughput. With EMV-enabled cards already accounting for 70% of global issuance, Asian issuers are positioned to leapfrog directly to dual-interface portfolios. Near-term sales growth, therefore, skews toward secure microcontroller cards able to support value-added services such as transit ticketing and small-value offline payments.

EU & GCC National eID and Digital Health Card Roll-outs

Implementation of the EU Digital Identity Regulation in May 2024 obliges member states to provide physical and mobile credentials in parallel, sustaining demand for high-security polycarbonate cards.^{[1]Thomas Elis, “EU Digital ID Regulation Mandates Member States to Provide Digital Identity Wallets for Citizens,” techuk.org} GCC countries follow a similar path as they modernize healthcare delivery and border-control frameworks. Polycarbonate inlays such as CoreLam are now deployed in 20+ national programs. Manufacturers gain from multi-year supply contracts that favor vertically integrated players capable of personalisation, key management, and secure applet loading. Because wallet adoption will take time, physical eID issuance remains a mandatory fallback, locking in baseline unit volumes during the transition period.

Pre-paid SIM Expansion Driving Secure Elements in Latin America

E-SIM availability now spans 90% of Latin American markets, yet large prepaid segments still rely on physical UICC cards, creating a dual-technology environment.^{[2]Medeiros, Hyggor da Silva, Leandro de Souza Bezerra, Fernando Trinidad España, and Jefferson Tiago Santos de Oliveira, "Embedded-SIM (E-SIM) an Overview in Latin America: Implementation, Availability, Advantages and Disadvantages." Journal of Communication and Information Systems, jcis.sbrt.org.br} Mobile network operators hedge risk by procuring both eSIM profiles and next-generation secure elements that can operate in removable or embedded modes. Card makers with eUICC-certified operating systems consequently secure share, while semiconductor vendors benefit from incremental secure-element die demand. The coexistence model is expected to persist through the medium term as smartphone penetration continues to vary across urban and rural areas.

EU eIDAS-2.0 digital wallet regulation adoption

The May 2024 legal act mandates EU-wide Digital Identity Wallets by 2026, elevating secure-element demand because hardware-backed security is central to certification benchmarks under development at ENISA.^{[3]European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, "EU Digital Identity Wallet: A leap towards secure and trusted electronic identification through certification.", enisa.europa.eu} GlobalPlatform has already identified SEs as the optimum anchor for credential storage. National agencies, therefore, launch procurement rounds for cards that double as authentication tokens in wallet ecosystems. Suppliers able to offer converged form factors - physical card plus NFC-enabled applet - are well placed to win.

Rise of Tokenised Virtual Cards Reducing Physical Demand

Virtual card transactions are forecast to quadruple to more than 121 billion by 2027, while Mastercard targets 100% e-commerce tokenisation in Europe by 2030. The shift diverts issuer budgets toward digital engagements and shrinks replacement cycles for low-value debit portfolios. Physical cards remain essential for face-to-face acceptance and offline fallback, yet the share of wallet could tilt toward virtual instruments in mature markets, dampening unit growth.

Secure MCU Supply-chain Volatility

Automotive semiconductors are absorbing capacity at a projected 10% CAGR through 2030, squeezing secure MCU allocation for card vendors. Despite USD 2.3 trillion committed to new fabs, near-term lead times remain extended. Market leaders such as IDEMIA mitigate risk through direct foundry relationships and modular chip designs. Smaller card assemblers without captive supply confront cost spikes that compress margins.

Segment Analysis

By Interface Type: Contactless Remains Dominant while Dual-interface Accelerates

Contactless cards accounted for 54% of the smart card market size in 2024, reaffirming their status as the de facto form factor for everyday payments. Dual-interface issuance is rising at an 8.7% CAGR as issuers seek backward compatibility with legacy contact-only terminals without compromising tap-to-pay functionality. Innovations such as the EMV C-8 universal kernel reduce terminal certification complexity and catalyse acceptance expansion. In parallel, chipset improvements from Infineon shorten transaction time, improving user experience in high-throughput retail environments.

Issuer appetite for contact-only cards persists in government and defence, where a physical interface adds a security layer against relay attacks. Hybrid cards, embedding multiple technologies on a single substrate, satisfy niche enterprise requirements for logical and physical access convergence. The competitive narrative, therefore, shifts from mere interface type to value-added capabilities such as biometric match-on-card and post-issuance personalisation, themes that enable vendors to defend margins in the smart card market.

Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By Card Chip Type: Microcontrollers Lead as Secure Elements Surge

Microcontroller cards captured 62% of the smart card market share in 2024, reflecting their versatility across payments, telecom, and identity use cases. Secure element cards, however, are expanding at a 10.2% CAGR thanks to heightened cryptographic requirements in eID and digital-wallet ecosystems. The SECORA Pay Bio turnkey platform exemplifies how sensor integration and secure elements can be bundled to compress the bill-of-materials and time-to-market.

Memory-only cards remain relevant for mass transit and prepaid gift applications where cost sensitivity outweighs processing needs. Ultra-thin modules such as NXP’s MOB10 unlock new passport applications by improving durability against bending stress. Overall, the product-mix shift toward secure elements benefits semiconductor suppliers with certified Common Criteria product lines, sustaining a technology-led competitive moat within the smart card market.

By Material: PVC Holds Scale while Polycarbonate Gains Momentum

PVC retained 42.95% dominance in 2024 due to its low cost and well-established production tooling. Polycarbonate grows at 8.3% CAGR as governments opt for laser-engraved data pages that resist tampering. Banking issuers are experimenting with polylactic acid cards that cut virgin PVC by 80%.

Metal and composite cards occupy the premium segment, serving affluent consumer propositions that emphasize perceived value and durability. Vendors such as CompoSecure have shipped more than 200 million metal units since 2010, signaling scalable demand for differentiated materials.^{[4]CompoSecure, “2024 Form 10-K,” sec.gov} Material choice thus becomes a lever for issuers to align sustainability, branding, and security objectives in an increasingly segmented smart card market.

By Function/Application: Payment Dominates as eID Accelerates

Payment and banking applications represented 45.07% of the smart card market in 2024 and continue to anchor annual volume. Regulatory pushes in Europe and the GCC, coupled with national healthcare programs, are propelling eID cards at a 10.37% CAGR. Biometric authentication, once confined to pilot projects, now features in mainstream access-control deployments across Spain and Portugal.

Telecom SIM cards remain essential despite eSIM gains, as emerging markets still rely on removable form factors for device compatibility. Transit operators across 1,000 cities have adopted open-loop fare systems, embedding payment applets directly onto general-purpose cards. Diversified applications secure baseline growth even as digital alternatives proliferate.

Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By End-user Industry: IT and Telecom leads, BFSI Grows Fastest

IT and Telecom secured 44.4% of the smart card market size in 2024, underpinned by prepaid SIM demand and IoT connectivity. The BFSI segment, advancing at a 9.83% CAGR, invests in metal and biometric cards to boost customer advocacy, which correlates with 1.7× revenue growth among top-quartile banks.

Government projects expand steadily with national ID and social-security programs. Healthcare gains momentum via digital-health-card initiatives designed to unify insurance data and vaccination records. Retailers leverage co-branded loyalty cards with contactless payment capabilities, reinforcing omnichannel engagement and data collection strategies in the smart card market.

Geography Analysis

Asia led the smart card market with 44% revenue share in 2024, anchored by rapid EMV penetration and national ID issuances. Contactless transactions in China rose 37% year-on-year despite coexistence with QR payment ecosystems.^{[5]National Business News, "From payment tools to the 'digital key' smart card market of the Internet of Everything passes through the cycle and grows resilient.", wangwenlin.com} India logged 42% growth in contactless card issuance, though rural infrastructure gaps temper full-scale adoption. Japan, responding to a 30% spike in credit-card fraud, is piloting biometric payment cards and expects contactless payment value to reach USD 870 billion by 2028.^{[6]IDEX Biometrics, "IDEX Biometrics partners with KONA I to launch biometric cards globally." Inderes, inderes.dk}

Europe holds second place by value. The eIDAS-2.0 mandate drives both physical and digital identity demand, while Nordic enterprises pioneer FIDO2 hardware keys. GDPR-linked complexity delays multi-country issuance platforms, nudging issuers toward domestically hosted personalization centres. Mastercard’s commitment to full tokenisation by 2030 signals a gradual pivot to digital credentials, yet physical cards remain obligatory for offline verification and multi-channel access.

Africa is the fastest-growing region at a 9.3% CAGR. Mobile-money services processed transactions worth USD 1.68 trillion in 2024, catalysing demand for companion debit cards. South-African card payments will surpass USD 158 billion in 2025, while Egypt targets USD 104 billion in digital payments by 2030. Strategic alliances, such as Orange MEA and Mastercard, aim to digitize payments for 40 million users by 2025.^{[7]Mastercard, “A Guide to Issuing Sustainable Cards,” mastercard.com} North America emphasizes digital-fraud mitigation, South America benefits from SIM expansion, and Australia prioritizes tokenisation under its 2025-2028 security roadmap, visa.com.au.