Governments’ adoption and migration to next generation smart national ID cards will fuel the growth of the government smart card market, says ABI Research.

In its recent report “Government and Healthcare Citizen ID Cards,” the firm says that shipments in this market will reach 765 million by 2017. National ID cards will grow from 37% of the market today to become half of the market by this time.

Growth is coming from new projects and migrations in Poland, Russia, Brazil, France, China and Indonesia that will utilize high-end microcontroller and pure contactless or dual interface technology. These functions add security to the cards and allow for multiple applications, increasing the return on investment.

Other sectors in this market include driver’s licenses, healthcare and voter cards and e-passports.