We are please to announce the third edition of our global conference SIMposium in Vienna (Austria) at the Hofburg on 21st and 22nd April 2009 following the successful completion of SIMposium 2008.
Remember we are taking registrations for our first regional stop: SIMposium Asia, taking place in Hong Kong on 8th and 9th October 2008.
www.simposium-simalliance.com/asia
SIMposium 2008 which took place in Berlin in April 2008, had 340 international attendees from the mobile eco-system and beyond, to discuss emerging business opportunities and the latest trends in the convergence of mobile services.
Three of the top five handset providers attended the conference alongside two major open source handset providers. Maintaining the momentum from SIMposium 2007, Operator companies accounted for one third of participants representing 1,1 billion subscribers worldwide. Another third of the representatives were made up of SIM and technology enablers and 20% of the attendees were service, content and application providers and mobile marketing agencies.
The 10 keynotes, 4 panels and 50 presentations were well attended. Divided in 5 different tracks (Mobile Convergence, M2M, Mobile Transactions, Marketing to the Consumer, Mobile Multimedia) the role of the SIM card was covered:
- not only - in its traditional role - the management of security and identity - which has never been so important in a soon all-IP world
- but also as a distribution channel & platform where Operators and their Eco-System Partners are able to provide more sophisticated & customised services requiring fast interaction with the outside world.
An International Event
With 26 sponsors & exhibitors and 340 participants from 37 countries around the world, SIMposium 2008 cemented its international scope. Despite a strong representation from the European countries, there was an increased number of attendees from Asia Pacific countries, something which underpins reports that the double digit growth in SIM card shipping is partly due to a drive in shipping to countries, such as India and China, in emerging markets.
As in 2007, SIMalliance chose the SIMposium 2008 event to publish global SIM card shipments *: This year saw an increase of 28% from the 1.9 billion SIM cards being shipped in 2006 to 2.7 billion shipped in 2007. The sustained growth, since 2005 is being driven by new opportunities from emerging markets and demand for a new generation of high-speed multimedia handsets.
*SIMalliance Market Figures are produced through a blind and robust process based on real deliveries. These figures are accurate thanks to SIMalliance's global footprint (> 90%).
Best regards
Michel Canitrot
Chairman of the Board
SIMalliance