Acuity’s latest research report “The Global National eID Industry Report” is out and the findings – while not unexpected – shed some interesting light on the marketplace.
Global revenues are projected to reach more than $11 billion by 2013, and while this number will fluctuate a bit based on program launches and deployment surges, Acuity believes this to be a sustainable market value.
While the number of countries with some form of National ID program is projected to increase 11% from 126 to 140 from 2010 to 2015, the number of countries with National eID programs will grow from 67 to 114, an increase of 70% over the forecast period. This dramatic shift from National IDs to National eIDs characterizes the overall adoption pattern of the National eID market
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These adoption numbers vary significantly from the prepublication findings Acuity released earlier this year, that you may have seen on the website or presented at the SDW conference in April. This is in part due to additional research and new announcements, but primarily due to an expansion of the definition of an “eID Program”.
Initially, for the purposes of the report, National eID programs were restricted to those issuing chip based cards. However, this excluded two key countries with programs in progress: India and Mexico. It seemed counterintuitive that these 2 critical countries did not qualify.
This led to a revised definition of an “eID Program” which includes 3 categories of programs: those that include a chip-based card and may or may not include biometrics, those that rely on biometrics but issue a non-chip based, or traditional card (Mexico), and the those programs that rely on centralized biometric registries (India).
The result is a lengthier report that includes more National eID countries (114) and reflects a more complex National eID ecosystem. More information and Previews are available at the Acuity website.