Biometrics industry to become a $30 billion market by 2021

Consumer electronics, particularly smartphones, continue to boost the biometrics market, with embedded fingerprint sensors anticipated to reach two billion shipments by 2021 at a 40% CAGR. “Consumers are increasingly putting their trust behind biometric-based authentication and searching for security, convenience, and personalization in multiple layers,” says Dimitrios Pavlakis, Research Analyst at ABI Research. “Surveillance is also gearing up, and by 2021, we anticipate more than one in three surveillance cameras shipped to be IP-connected cameras. This will undoubtedly open up new pathways for facial biometrics and surveillance analytics.” While North America and the Asia-Pacific region continue to dominate the majority of the biometrics market share, ABI Research market data suggests that Latin America and the Middle East can also expect a boon in terms of new biometric implementations. This will primarily occur in banking and personal finance, followed by the governmental and security sectors. Rising tensions and pressing identification issues in both the Middle East and Europe will also cause a major increase in biometric technologies. This will, in turn, motivate the respective governments to push for new legislation and regulations for data management and exchange initiatives. “Companies will move more aggressively toward the adoption of these new biometric form factors and technologies,” concludes Pavlakis. “Technologies include USB-connected devices; embedded sensors in consumer electronics and payment cards; 4-finger, iris, and facial recognition in smartphones; and vein recognition in ATMs.” Payment giants like Mastercard lead the way with multimodal technologies and a distinct emphasis on facial recognition. Meanwhile, industry leaders Gemalto, STMicroelectronics, FPC, and Precise Biometrics recently formed a partnership for the development of end-to-end biometric architecture. And Morpho (Safran) partnered with Airtel to increase user mobility under the UIDAI project in India.