Out of a total of 552 million NFC handsets shipped in 2016, 227 million will feature multiple secure elements. The increased inclusion of multiple secure elements will drive the mobile NFC market valuation above the $1 B mark. Although MNOs favor SWP SIM implementation, the market will develop with both SWP and embedded solutions shipping onto single devices. Continued development of ICs combining both controller and secure element will result in most handsets shipping with an embedded solution as standard practice. ABI Research forecasts that 78 percent of all NFC handsets will ship with some form of embedded secure solution in 2016.
"The issues affecting the location of the secure element remain a hot topic and, although progress has been made, there remains uncertainty among ecosystem players," said Research Analyst Phil Sealy.
As the market matures and business models are realized and deployed, a variety of secure elements are being deployed into devices to meet different client demands. In the long run, this will allow service providers to enter the NFC market alongside MNOs, in turn making the offerings of NFC applications more competitive. As well as the well-publicized NFC handset market, lesser known sectors, such as CE devices, tags, bridging solutions, and other markets will account for additional IC shipments totaling 534 million in 2016.