JR East to resume production of Suica cards as early as fall

East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) will resume issuing Suica cards — sales of which have been suspended since last year due to a global shortage of chips needed to make them — as early as this fall, the railway operator said Wednesday.

The rechargeable transportation card is embedded with an IC chip and can be used for train fares as well as shopping.

The production of unregistered cards, which do not display the user’s name, were suspended last June, while registered cards followed suit two months later. Only cards for children, people with disabilities and commuter passes have continued to be produced.

Since the suspension of physical IC cards, Suica have primarily only been issued virtually on its mobile app.

Now that JR East has enough chips in stock, they are preparing to resume selling name-registered Suica cards later this year.

The railway operator is yet to determine a resumption date and will announce details as preparations advance.

The Suica IC card system was first introduced in 2001. Over the years, it has become the most popular way to pay train fares, and is slowly replacing the traditional ticketing system.

Pasmo — an IC card similar to Suica and popular in the metropolitan Tokyo area — had also halted sales around the same time as its JR East counterpart due to the chip shortage, and remains suspended.

Elsewhere in Japan, the Central Japan Railway Company’s TOICA card and JR West’s ICOCA card still remain in production.