Gemalto shares fall on worries over Apple E-Sim card challenge

The shadow of an attendee is cast below a logo of Franco-Dutch technology firm Gemalto during a news conference in Paris February 25, 2015.

/Gonzalo Fuentes

Gemalto shares fell sharply on Thursday, with traders citing concerns that its SIM card manufacturing business might be impacted if U.S. tech company Apple launched a rival e-Sim card.Traders cited a Financial Times report that Apple and Samsung were in talks with telecom groups to launch the e-Sim card as weighing on Gemalto's shares.Gemalto shares were down by 5.1 percent, underperforming a 0.9 percent rise on Amsterdam's benchmark stock exchange. Gemalto's shares had already been hit earlier this year after it posted disappointing 2014 revenue growth figures in March. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Alistair Smout)