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GlobalPlatform conservatively calculates that more than 6.2 billion Secure Elements (SEs) were based on its specifications in 2018. This represents an increase of over 750 million from the previous year, and takes the total amount of deployed SEs based on GlobalPlatform technology since 2010 to over 35 billion. These GlobalPlatform-compliant SEs are deployed in a range of form factors – including smart cards, SIM cards and USB tokens – to protect data and devices across sectors including payments, telecoms, transportation, automotive, government, enterprise ID and healthcare.

SEs provide a tamper-resistant physical platform within a connected device, which are an evolution of the traditional chip that resides in smart cards. GlobalPlatform protects digital services by standardizing and certifying a security hardware / firmware combination, known as a secure component, which acts as an on-device trust anchor. One focus of GlobalPlatform’s work is the standardization and interoperability of application management within secure components, specifically SE and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technologies. SE and TEE technologies are now widely-deployed across a range of devices such as smartphones, tablets, set top boxes, wearables, connected cars, and other internet of things (IoT) devices.

GlobalPlatform develops and maintains functional and security certification programs to promote collaborative and open ecosystems where digital services and devices can be trusted. Certifying secure components within devices is essential in facilitating collaboration between service providers and device manufacturers, and building and maintaining trust with end-users.

To learn more about SEs, read GlobalPlatform’s ‘Introduction to Secure Elements’ guide. To find out about GlobalPlatform and how to contribute to its work visit www.globalplatform.org.

GlobalPlatform’s estimations are based on EuroSmart’s SE shipment figures for 2010-2018 published in May 2019.