The 2014 Holiday Season may be the brightest ever for the biometrics industry as the long anticipated floodgates for consumer biometrics may finally be open. Acuity forecasts that intensifying demand for smart phones, tablets, and wearable mobile devices that incorporate biometrics will drive a global market of 2.5 billion users with nearly 4.8 billion biometric devices by 2020.
The market for biometrically enabled mobile devices will surge over the next five years. Apple’s launch into biometrics and payments will be followed by similar efforts by Samsung and others, and within 3 years, biometrics will become a standard feature on smart phones as well as other mobile devices
Wearables including smart watches, Google’s re-envisioned Google Glass, along with form factors yet to be seen, will burst onto the market and fundamentally change the way we think about and manage communication, payments, personal transactions, healthcare, and social interaction. All of these devices will include embedded biometrics as well as options to download software-based biometric apps.
Acuity projects that embedded fingerprint sensors will initially dominate the market becoming standard in smart phones and tablets by 2017, generating more than $1.5 billion in annual revenues. Emerging biometric sensors that rely on an individuals pulse, skin texture, or other yet unknown metrics will evolve rapidly, especially on wearables. This is in addition to biometric apps, such as facial or eye based recognition, that will leverage the camera or other built-in device features.
For more insight into the mobile biometric marketplace, review Acuity’s Mobile Market Analysis and download Acuity’s Mobile Market Briefs: “The ABC’s of Mobility: Apple, Biometrics and the promise of Consumer Centric privacy” and “The Center of Gravity Has Shifted“.
For a comprehensive view of the marketplace and detailed forecasts, pre-order “The Global Biometrics and Mobility Report”. The report will be available in January 2015 and can be ordered now for a 20% discount.