Frost & Sullivan Confers Competitive Strategy Leadership Award on OMNIKEY
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Walluf, Germany. - March 09, 2006 - OMNIKEY, one of the world´s leading manufacturers of innovative smart card readers, has been presented the 2005 Frost & Sullivan Competitive Strategy Leadership Award in recognition of its stellar performance in the global smart card reader market.
Unique strategies underlined OMNIKEY's strong market growth in 2004 as well as its exceptional growth in the first half of 2005, culminating in an estimated unit shipment increase of 55 per cent.
"With the right level of investment and key recognition in areas needed for development, including the expansion of its product and geographic range, the German-based company has moved in the right direction for enhanced market share in 2005 and 2006," notes Frost & Sullivan Smart Card Analyst Anoop Ubhey. "Further investments in R&D and other resources have reduced its dependence on European markets and set the stage for establishing healthy growth in other regions."
Backed by focused strategies, the company's three business divisions - corporate identification, government and payment - have all made strong gains.
The fast expanding corporate identification market currently accounts for nearly half the company's revenues. Among the successful contracts that OMNIKEY entered into in this arena, together with their System Integration Partners, include agreements with Siemens, the Volkswagen Group, Allianz Insurance, Union Bank of Switzerland and e-on Energie.
The government sector currently accounts for about 30 per cent of OMNIKEY's business, with the company having made particularly powerful strides in Italy, UK and Austria. The payment segment - where OMNIKEY differs significantly from many of its nearest competitors in that it does not operate in the point-of-sale (POS) market - contributes to a healthy 20 per cent of the company's business.
"As part of the ASSA ABLOY Identification Technology Group (ITG), OMNIKEY is positioned to leverage exciting growth opportunities and make inroads into other key markets," says Mr. Ubhey. "With e-passports as well as National ID projects offering tremendous potential for increased profit margins, the OMNIKEY CardMan® family of products is ideally suited to prevent identity theft as well as improve security and convenience for both government and individual end users."
Kurt Schmid, CEO of OMNIKEY states: " We are highly delighted to receive this award. It confirms that our business strategy and implementation over the last years had been right. This is an excellent base for the future of OMNIKEY to lead the smart card reader industry. "
OMNIKEY's completely indirect sales channel - consisting of companies ranging from OEMs, smart card manufacturers, traditional system integrators, specialist companies to software companies - presents another innovative strategic model which has proven exceptionally successful.
"Our well balanced channel policy which we have consistently been following over the past years is one of the reasons why our partners appreciate us as reliable and loyal partner. This is another important reason why OMNIKEY has been selected as first choice for innovative reader technology in high end security solutions, " says Volker Kunz, CSO of OMNIKEY.
Frost & Sullivan's Competitive Strategy Leadership Award is bestowed upon a company whose unique competitive strategies have yielded significant gains in market share. Often, the recognized company has taken advantage of recent market changes that facilitate the introduction of never-before seen methods of capturing and solidifying market presence. Frost & Sullivan analysts expect such innovations to produce lasting, precedent-setting trends in the industry.
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.
Company names and product names mentioned above are the trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies.
About OMNIKEY
OMNIKEY, one of the world's leading manufacturers of innovative smart card readers, offers the most diversified product portfolio available on the market today. OMNIKEY's smart card readers for PCs can be utilized by any application including logical access control, digital signature, WLAN authentication, secure banking and online transactions, loyalty programs, and healthcare solutions.
OMNIKEY, headquartered in Walluf, near Wiesbaden (Germany), is part of the ASSA ABLOY Identification Technology Group (ITG). OMNIKEY´s North American headquarters reside in Irvine, California with technical support in Atlanta, Georgia. The Asia Pacific operation is located in Hong Kong. Design, production management, and quality control of OMNIKEY's products are carried out in the company's two R&D centers in Linz, Austria and Erfurt, Germany. OMNIKEY readers are distributed worldwide through a global network of partners, including value added resellers, system integrators, and OEMs. For further information please visit www.omnikey.com.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, has been partnering with clients to support the development of innovative strategies for more than 40 years. The company's industry expertise integrates growth consulting, growth partnership services and corporate management training to identify and develop opportunities. Frost & Sullivan serves an extensive clientele that includes Global 1000 companies, emerging companies, and the investment community, by providing comprehensive industry coverage that reflects a unique global perspective and combines ongoing analysis of markets, technologies, econometrics, and demographics. For more information, visit www.frost.com.
For further information, please contact:
Antje K. Schäfer
OMNIKEY
Am Klingenweg 6 a
65396 Walluf - Germany
Tel: +49 6123/7913-15
Fax: +49 6123/7913-28
antje.schaefer@omnikey.com
Pier Costa
WISE MEDIA S.p.A.
Via Lepetit 4
20124 Milano - Italy
Tel: +39 / 02 / 8903 4111
Fax: +39 / 02 / 67388322
pier@wisemedia.it
