Semiconductor vendor Inside Secure has so far shipped more than ten million NFC chipsets this year. The company said the figure “heralds the imminent arrival of mainstream NFC smartphones and devices to global markets as the industry achieves liftoff in 2011”. The size of chipset shipments offers an indication of demand among handset vendors for NFC technology. As a leading vendor Inside Secure offers some insight into the level of vendor interest although not as much as will come next week when NXP, the market leader in NFC chipsets, reports its quarterly results. Possibly NXP’s imminent announcement encouraged Inside Secure to make its own about shipment levels (it was not making a scheduled quarterly results announcement).

An idea of NFC’s future trajectory is contained in a new In-Stat report that predicts chip shipments surpassing 1.2 billion by 2015. Inside Secure’s chief operating officer Charles Walton (pictured) said his company’s figures indicate NFC technology “is achieving significant penetration as more and more mobile device and other consumer electronics device makers begin to integrate NFC functionality in their product offerings". But as the NFC market hots up so more competitors, including some bigger than Inside Secure, will enter it. Broadcom recently said it was revamping its NFC chipset offerings. Inside Secure supplies its NFC chipsets to a number of vendors including ZTE and RIM but less than NXP for instance.