Smartphone Biometric Technology Is on the Rise

The adoption of biometrics across various applications in an array industries is continually increasing. Concerning consumer technologies, fingerprint and facial biometrics are already prevalent in the devices we use daily. This is only expected to increase with time, with ABI Research observing the adjoining movement of growing penetration of biometric technology within devices, with the increasing integration of biometrics in smartphone operating systems, external apps, and web pages. Alongside facial and fingerprint technologies, numerous other biometric modalities, including voice, gesture, and vein recognition, are seeing strong uptake.

What Is Smartphone Biometrics?

Smartphone biometrics are a convenient and secure method to authenticate user identities, which spans simply unlocking your device, authenticating a payment in your banking app, and verifying your identity online. Through biometrics on a mobile device, both user experience and security are enhanced, strengthening the product offering of the vendor in question. Moreover, a biometric login modernizes the lengthy and tedious processes of old.

The inclusion of biometrics in mobile devices becomes a point of differentiation between smartphone vendors and their product lines, particularly in a market where the latest and greatest consumer tech holds a strong appeal. Including biometric capabilities for smartphones is only becoming easier and cheaper with the natural progression of technology, to the point where even low-end smartphone models will include these features. As a result, this will drive the market and overall biometric penetration of the smartphone user base.

Mobile Device Manufacturers and App Designers Are Leveraging Biometric Technologies

A circular generation then arises for the need for biometrics on behalf of both smartphone Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and application designers. Smartphone manufacturers include biometric capabilities in their mobile devices to improve their offerings. At the same time, external applications take advantage of this capability by implementing biometric features. From the application developer side, integrating biometric-backed features in apps then drives a need for these technologies in mobile devices, so as to not be left behind the status quo.

Growth Projections for Smartphone Biometrics

To paint a picture of the growth of biometrics in smartphones, driven by the aforementioned reasoning, ABI Research details a breakdown by biometric modality. While Chart 1 indicates shipments of fingerprint sensors, Chart 2 (at the end of the list) depicts the attach rates of other biometrics by year.

Chart 1: Fingerprint Sensor Shipments (Source: ABI Research)

Below is a list of ways that smartphone biometrics can be used.

• Fingerprint Scanning: Despite Apple’s withdrawal (in the majority of models) from fingerprint technology, ABI Research forecasts sensor shipments to continue increasing through 2027. This familiar biometric technology is becoming even more widespread in mobile devices for secure user identification, in the form of front-mounted, side-mounted, and in-display sensors.
• Facial Recognition: The attach rate of facial recognition capability per smartphone shipped is expected to grow significantly, with ABI Research’s full forecast expecting a near-doubling by 2031.
• Gesture Recognition: Gesture recognition refers to a mobile device built with specific processors and video cameras that allow the user to communicate through gestures, such as hand-waving. While not as prominent as finger and facial biometrics, gesture recognition attachment per shipment is still expected to see stable growth.
• Voice AI: Voice AI refers to a device with the ability to recognize audible instructions and convert them into actions or functions and respond in two-way, contextual human-like conversation. Initial implementations use machine learning in the cloud, while the forward-looking goal is to shift some of the workloads to training and processing on-device. This technology is expected to accelerate over the next few years.
• Vein Recognition: Vein recognition penetration is seldom included in the smartphones of today, but is expected to ramp up significantly despite only a very minor presence in 2023.

Chart 2: Smartphone Biometric Technology Attach Rates (Source: ABI Research)

How Should Vendors Interpret All This Information?

As the adoption of biometrics in smartphones and other mobile devices continues to increase, market players should be aware of the following points:

• App developers should leverage commonplace biometric authentication technologies to enhance the security and user experience of their products.
• The need for smartphone OEMs to monitor competitors’ mobile biometric offerings goes without saying; this extends to the inclusion of various biometric technologies to offer a perceived high-end mobile device, and align with the market’s “must-haves.”
• With the whole smartphone ecosystem seeing increasing involvement of biometrics, the necessity only increases to the point at which it is almost a bare minimum requirement. Where and in which models the inclusion of biometrics sits throughout a vendor’s product portfolio is key.
• Sensor vendors should know the growing demand for smartphone biometric capabilities and factor this into operations management and manufacture.

This blog post features some top-level analysis drawn from ABI Research’s Consumer Biometrics market data (MD-CB-23). See ABI Research’s full product for a deep dive on mobile biometrics, spanning smartphones, tablets, wearables, and other consumer devices.