Smartphone biometrics are Next focus market in strategic pivot

Next Biometrics is moving into the smartphone market with technology to enable fingerprint authentication anywhere on the screen of the device, CEO Ulf Ritsvall announced during an “innovation update” presentation to investors.

The technology can also be used to authenticate two fingerprints at once. Ritsvall further suggests the technology will make biometric authentication easy enough for people to implement it for opening important apps, like their email.

The market has “huge potential,” Ritsvall says, with 1.2 billion devices sold last year, 80 percent of which came with biometric capabilities. The high end devices that make up Next’s total addressable market for full-display fingerprinting in the immediate short term consists of 300 million smartphones, the company estimates. With its full-screen fingerprint sensing capability, Next will improve the usability, convenience and security of smartphone biometrics, Ritsvall says.

Next CPO Marcus Lauren admits that “the competition is fierce, with all the best companies working here due to the big volumes.” He notes that other companies have tried to develop full-display authentication before, but argues that Next’s patented active thermal sensing technology is the right one to succeed where others have failed.

Full-display fingerprint biometrics have been patented by several companies, but are yet to reach the market. Meanwhile, Idex is in the middle of a years-long pivot from supplying biometrics to the smartphone market to cards for payments and access control, and Fingerprint Cards is winding down its mobile business line.

The company plans to partner with smartphone component manufacturers, as it has relied on manufacturing partners in its other lines of business. The business model will depend somewhat on this ecosystem, but high-end display products currently cost about $120 each on average, according to Ritsvall. Face ID adds $30 to $40 to the price of Apple displays. The increase to build in Next’s biometric technology will be closer to 10 or 20 percent, Ritsvall says. Next would take a piece of that increase, but when pressed for estimates, Ritsvall declined to name a figure.

Whatever form the product ends up taking, it will not be released this year. Next is currently working on integrations with display-makers. Ritsvall noted during the presentation that it has an existing partnership with Innolux, the fifth-largest supplier of smartphone displays in the world.

“We will rock the Mobile World Congress in the years to come,” Ritsvall says. He later specifies a target of 2027.

The benefits of full-display authentication with fingerprint biometrics over face include higher security from the ability to differentiate between twins and other family members and faster unlocking speed, Ritsvall said during the Q+A segment.

Next’s existing business is growing and will continue its operations unchanged, Ritsvall says.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Next Biometrics  |  smartphones  |  stocks  |  under display