Research: November 2005

According to a new study "Americas Smart Card Market Analysis," from Frost & Sullivan in collaboration with the Smart Card Alliance, North American smart card microcontroller shipments will top 132 million units in 2005 and grow at a rapid 27.7 percent compound annual rate through 2010. Frost & Sullivan argues that interest in contactless payment will help drive growth in North America as will interest in government issued IDs.

In another study, commissioned by MasterCard and conducted by Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), only 12.5 percent of corporate travel managers currently receive hotel folio line item spending data from their payment card providers. Still,  more than three out of four say they plan to obtain that data in the near future and nearly half of respondents (47 percent) rated the importance of getting electronic transmission of hotel folio data in their expense management system as "very critical." In addition, 65 percent of respondents rate the importance of electronic transmission of eFolio data as either "very critical" or "critical" in terms of all the issues related to managing travel.