NFC Times Exclusive Insight – The SIMalliance vendor group is playing up what it calls soaring growth in NFC SIM shipments in 2014, despite troubling signs for the future of SIM-based NFC, such as Apple Pay and similar initiatives by other OEMs, as well as growing interest in host-card emulation and the failure of SIM-based NFC services to take off.

The vendor group, whose members account for about 90% of total SIM shipments worldwide, reported today shipments of 132 million NFC SIM cards in last year, up 69% from 78 million SIMs shipped in 2013. North America topped the list of markets for the NFC SIMs, followed by Japan and South Korea, Europe and then China. 

But growth in global NFC SIM shipments in 2015 remains uncertain, with a major engine for demand–the SIM-based Softcard wallet–ending with the demise of the Softcard joint venture last month.