Today, Research and Markets has released a new report detailing the next five years of the global mobile biometric market. The firm’s newest offering details the big news right in its specific title: “Global Mobile Biometrics Market 2014-2018 with 3M Cogent Inc., AuthenTec Inc. Fujitsu Ltd., and NEC Corp. Dominating.”
The market being examined is expected to grow at a massive rate according to the report, with Research and Markets stating that it is expected to have a CAGR of 156 percent between now and 2018.
This growth is due to a number of factors, according to the research firm. Among these is the growing popularity of mCommerce, with financial institutions encouraging the use of online and mobile banking apps that by their nature require better-than-PIN authentication.
In addition to this mCommerce push, Research and Markets is witnessing an increase in consolidation that it expects to continue. Existing vendors are falling into a trend of acquisition in order to broaden their portfolios with biometric solutions. Specifically, the firm points to 3M’s acquisition of Cogent in 2010 as an example of the types of corporate purchases that the next few years will hold.
Not everything is completely clear cut for the market, however. The firm identifies the availability of inexpensive biometric alternatives that stand as competing security solutions. These are identified as token-based two-factor peripherals and software authentication.
This last point is meant to illustrate a barrier of accessibility in mobile biometrics, namely cost. It is true that at this moment there are no fingerprint sensor smartphones in many regions below the flagship level, therefore demanding the highest price in terms of mobiles.
A reason to be optimistic about this is that news from a Samsung shareholder meeting earlier this week has shown that there is an interest in exploring different modes of biometric technology on all types of smartphones. The implication here (as far as experts and the media are concerned) is that eventually all available smartphone models will ship with some kind of biometric authentication technology.
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