Major U.S. mobile carrier to begin selling Precise Biometrics Tactivo, places initial order

An unnamed mobile operator, one of the largest in the United States, will begin selling the Precise Biometrics Tactivo in Q1.

According to the company, the operator has placed an initial order of 5,000 Tactivo units for delivery this month. The operator, with a significant base of U.S. government and corporate customers, plans to launch and make their Tactivo imitative announcement later in March.

“We consider the agreement with this leading Operator, soon to be named, a breakthrough milestone and a very important endorsement of our line of Tactivo products. Their marketing and sales resources are unmatched in the market wherefore we have very high expectations to this partnership, especially considering the size of the government market,” Precise Biometrics CEO and President, Thomas Marschall said.

An important driver for this agreement is the expectation that before the end of the government budget year in September 2013, a new policy will be announced, mandating the use of the PIV credentials for all government employees and contractors on mobile devices. Precise expects this area to remain an important focal project within US government in the coming years, despite reductions in public spending.

Last year, the Biometrics Research Group predicted that the market for electronic identity cards will reach U.S$5.2 billion by 2015. There are currently a total of 5.6 million government employees and contractors requiring PIV credentials. The majority have already been issued a PIV card and they will be subjected to the new mandatory requirement for implementation on mobile platforms used for remote access.

“US Government compliance with the new mandate will remain a cornerstone of our Tactivo strategy for 2013 and onwards. With our ambitious Product Roadmap including the introduction of an Android and even other platform enabled Tactivo products in the coming quarters, we will be able to cover the full scope of devices uses by US Government employees. As such we consider ourselves market leader within mobile smartcard readers. Even outside the US Government segment we continue to see a strong and positive development, the results of which will start to materialize in spring of this year,” Marschall said.

Reported in BiometricUpdate.com, earlier this year, Precise announced that a major U.S.-based provider of financial information services chose the company as its new fingerprint algorithm vendor following a thorough market test. Upon this announcement, Precise Biometrics rose to its highest stock price in more than two months, following news that the deal would have a positive impact on first-quarter results.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  fingerprint  |  fingerprint verification  |  government  |  identification  |  secure identification  |  verification