Global shipments of smartphones with fingerprint sensors totaled 920 million units in 2017, representing a penetration rate of 64%, and shipments of such smartphones are likely to reach 1.25 billion units in 2020 for a penetration rate of over 75%, according to Digitimes Research.
As a global leading supplier of fingerprint sensors, Sweden-based Fingerprint Cards (FPC) saw its revenues for 2016 shoot up more than 650-fold over the 2013 level on rapidly emerging business opportunities associated with fingerprint sensing technology, promoting many US, Taiwan and China players to venture into the sector in the past year. As a result, the average selling price (ASP) has declined drastically amid fierce pricing competitions, causing FPC's revenues estimated for 2017 to plummet 53% on year, with the firm's operating profit rate plunging to an estimate of only 6-7% for the year from 39% in 2016 and 31% in 2015.
Meanwhile, China-based Goodix Technology, a re-invested fingerprint sensor manufacturing affiliate of Taiwan IC design house MediaTek, witnessed its 2016 revenues exceed the 2013 level by 4-fold. But the company's revenues for 2017 are still estimated to soar 25% to exceed the corresponding figure of FPC, allowing it to unseat FPC as the world's largest supplier of fingerprint sensors, Digitimes Research estimates.
As fingerprint recognition is the most cost-effective biometric recognition method, fingerprint sensors will enjoy immense business opportunities as they can be widely applied to smartphones, tablets, notebooks, automobiles, smart payment cards, and door entry control systems at government and private sectors.
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