Facial Recognition Hardware to Hit 800 Million Smartphones by 2024, Research Shows
Growth in biometrics means that more e-commerce platforms will likely use the technology to meet security requirements as well.
Faces are the future of smartphone authentication, but fingers are still formidable, according to a new study by Juniper Research.
According to the tech research and analytics company’s latest projections report, more than 1.3 billion devices will have software-based facial-recognition capabilities by 2024.
“Facial recognition hardware, such as Face ID on recent iPhones, will be the fastest growing form of smartphone biometric hardware. This means it will reach over 800 million in 2024, compared to an estimated 96 million in 2019,” the company said.
Juniper Research also said that fingerprint hardware will still be a big part of biometric payments, thanks to the continued expansion of finger sensors in emerging markets. The company said it expected more than 4.6 billion smartphones around the world to have fingerprint sensors installed by 2024.
The company said that the expected growth in biometrics means that more e-commerce platforms will likely use the technology to meet security requirements as well. It projected that more than 60% of biometrically-authenticated payments in 2024 will be for authorizing remote payments.
“As the longest running biometric modality, fingerprint payments will take the lead in this market as standards coalesce around the technology more easily than for facial recognition payments,” the company noted.
“Many consumers are now used to making fingerprint-based biometric payments, both for contactless and remote payments,” Juniper Research author James Moar said. “That familiarity and continued inclusion in smartphones will make it hard to displace in many markets.”
The projections follow similar predictions of a boom in biometric payments in coming years. In early 2019, for example, biometrics research and consulting firm Goode Intelligence forecasted that mobile biometric payments will surpass $1.67 trillion per year by 2023 and that by 2023 46% of biometric payments would occur in store.
Not all consumers may be on board with the coming changes, however. Last November, San Diego, Calif.-based identity verification technology firm Mitek found in a survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers that 65% used digital identities daily, but only 25% said they fully understood how they work.