Plastic Card Market Overview
Plastic cards have more than half a century of history. Currently, there are more than 1.5 billion of these cards worldwide. But they appeared in our country only 20 years ago, however, by now they have already taken root. That is why in Russia, as well as throughout the world, the plastic card industry is actively developing.
Plastic cards are used in such important areas as banking (payment - credit and debit cards), trade and services (discount, club, bonus and savings cards, as well as gift certificates, fuel cards and other prepaid cards).
In addition, plastic cards are widely used as personal identifiers (driver’s licenses and passports in some countries, badges, electronic keys for offices and hotel rooms, as well as in some insurance programs as a policy). Almost all mobile operators use a plastic card with a detachable element (SIM card) as the subscriber’s identification module.
Accordingly, all such organizations can be customers of plastic cards.
All of the above makes the production of plastic cards a very profitable business, prone to spontaneous expansion of production volumes.
Plastic card description
A plastic card is a rectangle with rounded ends measuring 54 mm by 86 mm and a thickness of less than 1 mm (international standard ISO 7810) made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), or, in some cases (in order to reduce the cost of manufacturing), other alternative polymeric materials origin (polystyrene, tislim, thermoplastic, polycarbonate and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene - ABS plastic).
On one or two sides the card is covered with a special film with a printed image (company logo, owner information, number, etc.). To read information from cards designed for this, mini-chips can be inserted into them, holograms or magnetic strips, bar codes, etc. can be applied. In some cases, there are scratch stripes or foil-embossed (or painted with gold or silver paint) elements on the card.
The process of manufacturing plastic cards and the cost of equipment
Actually the process of making a plastic card is as follows. First, a blank is made using a plastic card cutter.
There are 2 types of cutters - mechanical (6355 rubles) and electric (45098 rubles). Oddly enough, the performance of both is the same: about 2 workpieces in 3 seconds.
Of course, for a similar amount it is better to purchase 7 mechanical cutters, for which 7 people will work, than 1 electric one - thus, the production speed will increase 7 times.
It is also possible to purchase a semi-automatic hydraulic cutter with a matrix of 10 cards for 312 thousand rubles.
In addition, you can purchase semi-finished multi-colored blanks of the order of 6-24? per piece (1.74-6.97 rubles., Depending on the color and material). In the first case, since the plastic is made in the size of several cards (from 20 * 25 cm to the A3 format), one or two reciprocating cutters will have to be purchased to bring the workpieces in accordance with the size of the punch (stamp) of the cutter.
Each instance of a quality cutter will cost 3850 rubles. Plastic itself for blanks in sheets will cost at least 5.15 rubles. for 1 sheet. Accordingly, from one sheet it is possible to cut down from 10 to 26 blanks.
At the second stage, printing is performed on the workpiece, on the front, back or both sides. This process can be carried out by various methods, depending on the requirements of the customer and the budget allocated to them for the production of cards.
For example, the image can be printed using a conventional inkjet printer (9500 rubles) or a special thermal sublimation printer ($ 2350-2800, depending on the presence or absence of a magnetic stripe encoder).
Moreover, in the first case, you will also have to purchase a thermal press laminator for sintering two halves of a card with a printed image. The fact is that a thermal sublimation printer applies an image already on a laminated card. It is used, as a rule, in the absence of the need to connect two layers of the card or when purchasing semi-finished blanks or in the case when you want to print variable data not immediately, but as information arrives (i.e. to be able to reprint - for example, on passes for new employees).
If there is a need, for example, to insert a chip, another technology is usually used. However, it is possible to use a thermal sublimation printer in normal conditions, i.e. when applying sintering technology.
Thermopress laminator will cost 22.5 thousand rubles. In addition, for each tab of blanks, you will need a PVC laminate - a material that forms the upper wear-resistant layer of a plastic card, protecting it from erasing images.
One sheet of laminate the size of a sheet of A4 paper will cost 14 rubles, i.e. one bookmark requires 2 such sheets (upper and lower layer of the card) for 28 rubles.
In general, the production of cards of any type occurs using the same technologies. The last moment of the production process can be considered the application of additional elements (degrees of protection, variables or intended to hide information).
The most popular is the magnetic stripe tab. The magnetic strip is applied when laminating or manually on special roll applicators. It happens that the magnetic strip is also added by pressing. It comes in 2 types: LoCo and HiCo.
The first of them is less reliable and more susceptible to mechanical (physical) and magnetic (informational) destruction. But it is cheaper - 3364.23 rubles. per roll 1220 m long.
A band like LoCo is used, as a rule, for cards that are used relatively rarely - for example, discount or paper tickets for a fixed number of trips.
The second one is more reliable and durable, since information on such bands is less susceptible to demagnetization by external magnetic fields. It is used for bank cards, passes, etc.
The cost of the strip of the second type is 5736.44 rubles. for the same 1220-meter roll. Usually strips are marked with color: HiCo - black strip, LoCo - brown.
Calculation of unit cost and profitability of plastic card production
So, to calculate the cost of one plastic card - the simplest, with a magnetic strip and printing information using an inkjet printer, the following material costs should be considered:
1) plastic - 52 kopecks. (5.15 rubles per sheet from which 10 cards can be made)
2) laminate - 2.15 rubles. (2 sheets of 14 rubles each, with which you can laminate 13 cards)
3) cartridges for the printer: black - 307.34 rubles., Color - 770 rubles. Total RUB 1, 077.34 When taking into account the resource of one cartridge - 191 A4 pages and the number of cards on 1 page of this format - 13 pcs. it turns out the expense of 43 kopecks. on one card.
4) magnetic strip - taking into account the length of 10 cm (with a small margin) for 1 card and a bobbin length of 1220 m, a consumption of 28 kopecks is obtained. for tape type LoCo and 47 kopecks. for HiCo type tape.
The total result of material costs is 3.38 rubles. or 3.57 rubles.
The cost of producing similar cards (i.e. full color) depends on the volume of products ordered by the consumer and varies from 4.1 rubles. (for volumes over 50, 000 pcs.) up to 25 rubles. (for a volume of 50 pcs.). If we take the average price numerically equal to the arithmetic average of the indicated figures - 14.55 rubles, and the average cost of a card using a magnetic strip of different types - 3.48 rubles, we get the average profitability of one card equal to 11.08 rubles, or percentage - 418.71%.
Taking rather modest volumes of production, for example, 2500 cards per day, we get a monthly output (with 24 working days in 1 month) of 60, 000 per month. Thus, gross profit will be equal to 873 thousand rubles. upon deduction of wages by 2-3 workers (the normal amount for such a volume), considering it equal to 20 thousand rubles. per person and various general and general production expenses, approximately equating them to 40% of revenue, we get the minimum net profit within half a million rubles per month.
In addition, as mentioned earlier, the plastic card market tends to expand gradually - this is due primarily to the large volumes of credit and debit cards issued by banks; government policy on innovations in the social and economic sphere - Universal electronic card (“Russian card”), salary cards for employees of educational, medical, and other government institutions, social cards that entitle to privileged travel, etc.
In addition, there is a factor in opening new shopping centers, super- and hypermarkets, many of which introduce their own loyalty programs.
An average citizen can have several cards simultaneously: for example, credit, fuel and 3-4 loyalty cards.
In addition, with a gradual increase in volume, an increase in the range of products will also be required: for example, adding several new ones to existing devices, you can start issuing plastic cards with various holograms, embossed microchips, etc. All this will lead to deeper and more integrated market penetration and significantly increase profits. So, our own business for the production of plastic cards is one of the least costly and most cost-effective in modern conditions.
Elena Andrianova
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