AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, today announced it has signed a partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG), the world’s leading music company, to jointly promote the Smart Video Card as a new music distribution channel. Smart Video Card is a Gemalto innovation that embeds a DVD-compliant optical disc into the card body of a regular SIM card.

The Smart Video Card disc can be preloaded with 120MB of content which can be played in a standard DVD player. The disc pre-mastering can include audio and video encoding, and adding menus and navigation features providing the user with a full multimedia experience. This combined technology provides a unique medium for distribution of exclusive media content that can be enjoyed on the digital music player of choice, such as a PC, handset or MP3 player.

Through this partnership for the world outside North America, Gemalto will be able to exclusively offer UMG content along with its SIM card products, while Universal Music Group International will promote Smart Video Card towards operators that the music group is already working with to deliver online content.

“Universal Music Group constantly strives to find new avenues to bring our music to the consumer,“ commented Olivier Robert-Murphy, Vice President Strategic Marketing, Universal Music Group International. “Smart Video Card is one of the ways through which we can ensure more people can enjoy our roster of artists. With over one billion SIM cards shipped every year, Gemalto stood out as the partner of choice and we believe there is strong potential in the Smart Video Card business.”

“Smart Video Card has already met success on the mobile market as operators use it to promote their latest services and applications,” added Philippe Vallée, Executive Vice President of the Telecommunications Business Unit at Gemalto. “This is the first time a label has ever used the smart card as a distribution channel, and Gemalto is proud to join forces with the world’s leading music company.”

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is the world leader in digital security with 2008 annual revenues of €1.68 billion, and 10,000 employees operating out of 75 offices, research and service centers in 40 countries.

Gemalto is at the heart of our evolving digital society. The freedom to communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain, and work—anytime, anywhere—has become an integral part of what people want and expect, in ways that are convenient, enjoyable and secure.

Gemalto delivers on the growing demands of billions of people worldwide for mobile connectivity, identity and data protection, credit card safety, health and transportation services, e-government and national security. We do this by supplying to governments, wireless operators, banks and enterprises a wide range of secure personal devices, such as subscriber identification modules (SIM) in mobile phones, smart banking cards, smart card access badges, electronic passports, and USB tokens for online identity protection. To complete the solution we also provide software, systems and services to help our customers achieve their goals.

As the use of Gemalto’s software and secure devices increases with the number of people interacting in the digital and wireless world, the company is poised to thrive over the coming years.

For more information please visit www.gemalto.com.

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