Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, today announces it has been distinguished with the A.T. Kearney 2011 Best Innovator Award, in recognition for its best-in-class innovation management and leadership. The evaluation focuses on the practical "how to" in innovation practice and assesses what leading companies really do in order to achieve superior yield from their innovation strategies and investments. The jury, which is comprised of senior business executives, ranked Gemalto clearly first amongst a number of nominated global industry leaders.

Olivier Piou, CEO of Gemalto, receives 2011 A.T. Kearney Best Innovator Award. (Photo: Business Wire)

The selection criteria focus on the processes in place to encourage and manage innovation. And it evaluates actual achievements at delivering innovative products and services. Gemalto demonstrated a clear vision in making the digital world more convenient and secure for businesses and consumers alike. In particular, Gemalto remarkably evidenced a repeatable and well established system of innovation management that practically resulted in a succession of successful breakthroughs towards high-growth markets such as e-Government services, machine-to-machine applications and mobile financial services.

In addition to the creativity of its 1400 research scientists, Gemalto notably developed an internal think-tank and reward system allowing all its employees from around the world to fuel its ideas funnel. By leveraging a structured evaluation framework, and a quick “try hard, fail fast” period, projects of interest are then placed in incubation and development towards future successful products and services commercialization.

“This year’s prestigious A.T. Kearney Award given to Gemalto, after highly celebrated global companies such as Air Liquide and L’Oreal, is a prominent acknowledgment of our innovation and continuous improvement efficiency. We also apply the same innovation and virtuous principles to our own processes of idea management and innovation development, in order to maximize the yield of our yearly R&D investments. This commitment to excellence, and dedication to innovation, is crucial to our leadership in digital security," highlighted Olivier Piou, Chief Executive Officer of Gemalto. “Innovation is in our DNA, our methodical approach towards research, experimentation, development and commercialization of cutting-edge technology ensures that Gemalto leverages best-in-class processes and frameworks to deliver superior security, privacy and convenience for its customers, and their end users in the digital world.”

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is the world leader in digital security with revenues of €1.9 billion in 2010, and over 10 thousand employees operating out of 87 offices and 13 Research & Development centers in 45 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, eGovernment services and national security. We do this by providing solutions that leverage Gemalto’s secure software and services for governments, wireless operators, banks and enterprises to help them achieve their goals, enabled by a wide range of secure personal devices. Gemalto is the world leader for electronic passports and identify cards, smart banking cards, two-factor authentication smart tokens for online protection, Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) and Universal Integrated Circuit Cards (UICC) in mobile phones. Moreover Gemalto delivers on emerging applications related to the ‘Internet of things’ by supplying wireless modules and Machine Identification Modules (MIM) for Machine-to-Machine communication.

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 visit www.gemalto.com, blog.gemalto.com, or follow @gemalto on Twitter.

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