Since 1996, Sony has shipped 160 million Felica chips for use in stored-value and e-money cards – like Suica and Edy in Japan and Octopus in Hong Kong – and 40 million to mobile phones with integrated money applications.

The company said Felica was now the defacto standard in Japan and much of Asia, though the chip has had less exposure in North America and Asia.

Sony said the first 100 million cumulative shipping total took ten years to reach. The second 100 million chips were shipped in 18 months.

Felica is an RFID technology that does not need a battery and is used in contactless reader applications. The chip works when a card or chip-enabled mobile phone is within a few centremetres of a reader, with the transaction taking less than 0.1 seconds.

The immediate popularity of Japan’s Osaifu-Keitai mobile phones – launched in summer 2004 – and rapid expansion of services such as automatic payment for public transportation systems and electronic money settlement have made major contributions to this growth.

In addition to Japan, the Felica cards are used by the Hong Kong Mass Transit Rail Corporation (MTRC) which has also spawned an e-money function, the Singapore ez-Link transport system, as well as other travel cards in Shenzhen in China, Bangkok and India.

The Felica technology is also used for credit transactions, employee ID, building access, membership cards and reward point cards.