IMS Research has released a new report predicting that global contactless smart card shipments will increase from 950 million in 2010 to 3.5 billion in 2016.

According to “The World Market for Smart Cards and Smart Card ICs – 2011 Edition,” contactless bank cards will drive most of the growth – primarily from the People’s Bank of China’s plan to convert all of China’s debit and credit payment cards to smart cards. IMS says this announcement, made in March, will have a “great effect” on smart card shipments from 2013 to 2015.

Furthermore, it is projected that all smart cards shipped within the transportation sector will be contactless, as well as all passports issued in the Government ID sector.

IMS expects a mix of contact and contactless/dual interface solutions to remain in the government and health care sectors. Even so, around three quarters of cards sold into this application in 2010 were estimated to have been contactless.

Report author Don Tait comments: “The top contactless applications during the next five years are projected to be bank cards, government and health care ID cards, transportation and physical access cards. These four applications are projected to account for around 99% of units shipped in 2016.”