Silicon-based fingerprint sensors market projected to grow

Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (GIA), a leading publisher of off-the-shelf market research released a comprehensive global report on the silicon-based fingerprint sensors market.

By 2018, the silicon-based fingerprint market is projected to reach US$4 billion spurred by lowered cost of production and the use of sensors in various platforms of computing devices such as wireless devices and laptop PCs. Lowered costs are due to substantial technological improvements in terms of communication infrastructure, performance, battery life, computing power and significant decline in size and cost.

Currently, the use of password-based systems dominates safeguarding electronic information. However, passwords can be easily forgotten, lost, stolen or copied. Thus, there is a shift towards using password-free security. The use of biometrics, such as fingerprinting, is gaining prominence by increasing the accuracy of the identification method, and preventing unlawful access to information. Fingerprint technology is expected to dominate the market against other biometric modalities.

Moreover, fingerprint sensors are expected to hold significant position in maintaining digital identities in cloud-based computing infrastructure and in social networks as services become more personalized.

Expected to rise is the use of services such as Microsoft Live ID, Twitter API, OpenID, Facebook Connect, and Google ID for securely connecting the user to their personal accounts and other Web sites on the Internet.

More advanced finger-scan products are sought after in law enforcement now that the Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) is widely used. Collected fingerprints are matched against local, state, regional and/or national fingerprint databases. The healthcare industry also uses AFIS for identification of patients. It is projected that private sector enterprises will also soon use AFIS.

Globally, the report showed that the Asia-Pacific region represents the largest regional market in terms of value sales with Japan being the fastest growing market, having a compound annual growth rate of about 38 percent over the analysis period. As security and law enforcement services become the main concern globally, growth is expected to rise in rapidly developing economies including Latin America and Asia-Pacific, particularly China.

The use of biometrics will be strengthened due to access control and network security. A competitive edge from alternative technologies will be based on convenience and high security. Other significant findings show that advanced swipe sensors with considerably lower form factors, will be used increasingly in smaller and more power-hungry devices such as mobile phones and notebooks. As these sensors will be integrated into wireless devices, as well as physical access control applications, they can provide the incentive to drive global sales.

The following companies are considered major players according to the report: Atmel Corporation, AuthenTec Inc., Fingerprint Cards AB, Fujitsu Limited, Hangzhou Synochip Technologies Co., Ltd., IDEX ASA, Jiangsu Winch Corp. Ltd., and Validity Sensors Inc.

Do you agree that fingerprint recognition will be the fastest growing segment of the biometrics marketplace?

Article Topics

access control  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  identification  |  network security  |  research  |  security