Biometrics equipment market revenue plummets 22% in 2020
According to the latest report of ABI Research, in the coronavirus pandemic, global biometric equipment revenue is expected to fall by 22% in 2020 to US$6.6 billion. However, the entire biometrics market will resume its momentum in 2021, and total revenue will reach approximately US$40 billion by 2025.
Digital security industry analyst Dimitrios Pavlakis explained: “The current decline in the biometrics market landscape stems from multifaceted challenges from a governmental, commercial, and technological nature.”
First, the main reason for disrupting the market is the economic reforms during the epidemic crisis. These reforms forced the government to limit budgets and focus on damage control, personnel welfare, and operational efficiency.
The government has to postpone or temporarily cancel many fingerprint-based applications for user/citizen and patient registration, actual access control, internal staff management, and border control or civil, welfare, immigration, law enforcement, and correctional facilities.
Second, as telecommuting becomes the new normal in the first half of 2020, local commercial applications and access control are affected. Finally, health issues related to fingerprint technology based on contact have led to a significant drop in biometric revenue and global fingerprint device shipments plummeted.
New biometric application scenarios have emerged, and certain technological trends have risen to the top of the implementation list. For example, corporate mobility and logical access control schemes that use biometric technology as part of multi-factor authentication (MFA) for telecommuting.
Pavlakis says:
“Current MFA applications for remote workers might well translate into permanent information technology security authentication measures in the long term. This will improve biometrics-as-a-service (BaaS) monetization and authentication models down the line.”
Biometrics applications can now face new application scenarios, and market leaders and pioneer companies such as Thales, IDEMIA, NEC, FPC, HID Global and Cognitec are all at the forefront of innovation.
“Future smart city infrastructure investments will now factor in additional surveillance, real-time behavioral analytics, and face recognition for epidemiological research, monitoring, and emergency response endeavors,” Pavlakis concludes.
