Sony Corporation has announced an agreement with Watchdata Technologies to provide Near Field Communication (NFC) / FeliCa capabilities to Watchdata's NFC product lineups.
Under this agreement, Watchdata will develop NFC / FeliCa technology into SIMpass NFC solutions with Sony's support in 2013. The agreement allows Watchdata and Sony Corporation to provide NFC functions to a wider range of mobile phone handsets.
SIMpass is a unique Watchdata solution that enables NFC functionality for mobile phones without hardware modification by adding an attached antenna to a secure SIM card. SIMpass-SC is a Watchdata solution that provides NFC functions where the antenna is embedded into the SIM form factor itself. There are currently over 6,000,000 SIMpass mobile payment users in East Asia.
FeliCa is a secure contactless technology that is widely deployed in Asia for public transportation, access management, event ticketing, customer loyalty programs and micropayments. As of July 2012, there were over 605 million units of FeliCa IC Chips worldwide, incorporated in 403 million cards and 202 million mobile phones.
NFC is a short-range wireless communication technology to exchange data among various devices with various usages. This technology includes international standard ISO/IEC 14443 Type A/B as well as Type F technology compliant with ISO/IEC 18092 - NFCIP-1.
"The commercially proven security and performance of FeliCa is something we want to aggressively promote in the growing NFC ecosystem" commented Mario Manabe, Senior General Manager of the FeliCa Business Division, at Sony Corporation. "The agreement with Watchdata allows us to adapt FeliCa technologies to more handsets and expand global market presence"
"The partnership between Sony and Watchdata is the ultimate win-win scenario." added Mr. Wang Youjun, CEO of Watchdata. "It will provide for wider deployment of exciting new NFC mobile payment options for more consumers in more handsets in more regions than any other solution on the market."
