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Technology Stocks : Smart Cards -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric L who wrote (293)	11/22/2000 4:00:36 AM
From: chmang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 343

This is a copy of a post i sent to Eric on G&K thread: *********** To: Eric L. who wrote (35123) From: chmang Tuesday, Nov 21, 2000 1:06 PM ET Reply # of 35166 Hi Eric , I see from your profile that you are the expert in smart cards. Gemplus is doing its IPO in Paris and in the Naz on Dec 6th. They claim to have 33% world market share and they look profitable. Can you tell us your opinion on this company? do they have any patents? Market cap (ipo price) should be around 4.5 B$, 2000 revenues around 1 B$ , they have 600 M$ in cash. Charles ********** and his answer: *********** To: chmang who wrote (35149) From: Eric L. Tuesday, Nov 21, 2000 4:30 PM ET Respond to Post # 35158 of 35166 Re: Smart Cards - IPO - Gemplus gemplus.com Charles, << I see from your profile that you are the expert in smart cards. >> Not sure about expert, but I have toiled in that chasm (previous life ... and probably again in the future, but now in another chasm).. << Gemplus is doing its IPO in Paris and in the Naz on Dec 6th. >> Thanks for the news. I knew they had registered (again), but have not been paying attention. << They claim to have 33% world market share and they look profitable. >> That is their market share. Even larger I think in GSM SIM cards, which is the major market for high end microprocessor IC cards. The SIM is now used in iDEN, will be in TDMA, and CDMA and eventually all 3G technologies will deploy. In 3G a SIM is a USIM unless you are of CDMA persuasion, in which case it is called a R-UIM. << Can you tell us your opinion on this company? >> Very high. A PURE smart card play. Only other pure play is Oberthur (who acquired DeLaRue) who I think went public in July/August on Paris Bourse. << do they have any patents? >> Tis the French way. Not sure how valuable this is. Some value obviously, but the smart card standards that were closed and proprietary (except for GSM SIM cards which are open with some proprietary hooks) are giving way to open standards. << Market cap (ipo price) should be around 4.5 B$, 2000 revenues around 1 B$ , they have 600 M$ in cash. >> I have heard higher on 2000 revenues. Nice YOY. This French company has recently hired some VERY big US talent at the top out of HP & INTC. Supposedly investor Texas-Pacific recruiting and stocking for them. DD in order. I'll try to do do some myself. A Gemplus IPO thread was started on SI in late 1997 by Phillip Lee & it has 6 posts. you might want to post this news on it: Subject 17799 See if anyone comes out of the woodwork. I started a Smart Card thread in late 1998. It has 294 posts, one third mine. Smashing success, eh? Might also want to post the news there. Subject 24564 These threads Not quite as popular as G&K. <g> Smart Card? Say What <ggg> - Eric -