[Reader-list] Govt projects opportunity for NXP in India: Execs- 197

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All

It's Dhan Te Nan time for NxP!!!

 My earnest advise to all those who subscribe to this list and like to
invest in the stock market too, look out for stocks of companies
dealing with smart cards, contact-less cards, semiconductors, RFID,
and those companies dealing with smart ID products which could be
converted for interoperability purposes and invest. The GoI is going
big on a spending spree. The impression which is being created is
this- smart cards will help poor!!!

We know that it could be not so but who cares!!

ID Sector is up for grabs!!  NxP BTW is not a listed stock anymore. It
seems they don't want to share their booty with common investors.
Smart thinking I'd say.

Warm regards

Taha

Govt projects opportunity for NXP in India: Execs
By Swati Prasad, ZDNet Asia
Friday, August 14, 2009 02:44 PM

INDIA--NXP Semiconductors said Thursday it expects huge demand in
India for its identification products as a result of the country's
e-government, transport and financial inclusion projects.

Claus Hansen, NXP's Asia-Pacific senior director, sales and marketing
said: "India is a bundle of latent opportunity."

Headquartered in Europe, NXP creates semiconductors, systems and
software designed to deliver better sensory experiences in
televisions, set-top boxes, identification applications, mobile
phones, cars and a wide range of electronic devices.

Ashok Chandak, its senior director of global sales and marketing,
said: "We expect 600 million unique ID cards, 50 million e-passports,
100 million health cards, 50 million transport and ticketing cards and
50 million banking cards likely to be issued over the next seven
years."

The NXP executives were speaking at the Identification Summit 2009
hosted by the company Thursday for select media.

In India, NXP was the sole supplier of chipsets for the pilot of the
Multipurpose National Identity Card Project (MNIC) in 2007, now
integrated with the National Authority for Unique Identity (NAUID)
under the government's Planning Commission.

The company expects huge demand from the government sector, with the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) coming into force and
the India's National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) progressing in full
swing.

NREGA seeks to enhance the livelihood of people in rural India by
guaranteeing them 100 days of wage employment every financial year and
within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of their residence. The NeGP seeks to
make all government services accessible to the common man through
common service delivery outlets.

NXP offers four kinds of identification offerings--near field
communication (NFC) and services, radio frequency identification
(RFID), smartcard products and infrastructure components such as ICs
and modules for terminals.

Future is contactless
Hansen said NFC is emerging as an important application for mobile
phones. Handsets with NFC can be used for keyless entry into one's
car, to purchase tickets at toll-roads and in mass rapid transport
systems, and facilitate banking transactions.

NFC is a short-range high-frequency wireless communication technology
that enables data exchange between devices around 10 centimeters (4
inches) apart.

Mobile phone manufacturers are developing NFC-enabled handsets. For
instance, the Nokia 6212C 3G handset featuring NFC lets consumers
conveniently share content, access services and information as well as
conduct payments and ticketing with one tap of the device.

Hansen said: "Identity cards that have a longer usage span need a
contactless interface. Therefore, for e-governance projects like NUID,
health cards, driving licenses and e-passports, contactless would be
the natural choice."

Contactless is the interface of choice for the 21st century.
Governments and banks are moving towards it," he added. NXP's
contactless e-government chip has been used in 62 of the 71 countries
where the e-passport scheme has been implemented, according to him.

Financial inclusion--the process of delivering affordable banking
services to disadvantaged and low-income groups--also has wide scope
in India, since banks cover only 39 percent of rural India.

The government has set up a US$125 million financial inclusion
technology fund that seeks to bank these rural pockets with the use of
new financial inclusion technologies using smart cards, NFC and mobile
phones. NXP has been involved in several pilot financial inclusion
projects.

Smartcards for railways
NXP also announced its secure microcontroller-based chip technology
MIFARE DESFire was selected by the Centre for Railway Information
Systems (CRIS), an IT organization under India's Ministry of Railways.
The technology will power contactless smart cards for automatic fare
collection using automatic ticket vending machines (ATVMs) across
various cities in India.

Indian Railways is one of the largest and busiest rail transport
networks in the world, carrying over 18 million passengers daily.
"Globally, 75 percent of all electronic tickets in public transport
use NXP MIFARE technology," Chandak said.

CRIS developed an AVTM as part of an Unreserved Ticketing System
(UTS). These ATVMs will be rolled out across five major cities in
India--New Delhi, Secunderabad, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Pune. The
project is expected to go live in September 2009.

Swati Prasad is a freelance IT writer based in India.