[London, 12 Februrary 2007], SIMalliance announces that Eastcompeace - the N°5 smart card player in the World (Frost & Sullivan) and the largest domestic supplier of smart cards in

China - today reinforced its commitment to common and interoperable SIM & OTA architectures by officially joining the alliance. http://www.simalliance.org/Portal_Upload/Files/PR/PR_SIMposium2007_EastComPeace_Final.pdf
The Eastcompeace membership further establishes SIMalliance's global footprint and confirms the alliance’s position as the reference organization for the SIM Industry.

With this extended geographical coverage the SIMalliance, whose role is to promote interoperable SIM & OTA (Over-The-Air Platform) architectures, will be able to better steer its development to meet the practical needs of the mobile market. The alliance’s unequalled knowledge of “global” markets enables members to foresee and facilitate new services and content opportunities arising from the convergence of mobile communications, the Internet and content providers.

“This new membership shows a real maturity of the Industry and confirms that the SIMalliance is a truly global organization”, says Christophe Dolique, Chairman of SIMalliance. “Following the path of GSM technology, which has been a success mainly due to its global interoperability, the SIM card is poised to turn into a true revenue generator for operators and content providers, allowing them to deploy globally customized services & content quickly and easily”.

Commenting on joining the alliance, Mr. Huang Ningzhai, Vice President of Eastcompeace said: “With the fast development of mobile communication technology, SIM is set to play a more and more important role in the future. By joining this unique association for leading SIM vendors, we’re convinced that we are better positioned to influence and to contribute to developments in the industry.”

About SIMalliance:

Putting the SIM at the heart of the new mobile eco-system

Over the past five years SIMalliance has become one of the world’s foremost commentators in the mobile business. By operating outside the singular commercial interests of any individual SIM card player, the association has been able to pinpoint the mission critical services on the horizon and help steer their development to meet the practical needs of the mobile market. With SIMalliance members* now responsible for nine in every ten SIM cards sold worldwide, the collective vision of the association is uniquely placed to shape SIM developments and the impact they will have on the new generation of mobile services. From their standpoint, the challenge couldn’t be clearer for the protagonists in the mobile eco-system.

? SIMalliance members are: Eastcompeace, Gemalto, Oberthur Card Systems, Giesecke & Devrient, Incard SA, Prism, Sagem Orga, Sandisk & XPonCard
www.simalliance.org