The analysts found that the market is mainly driven by a combination of the increasing use of biometrics in consumer electronics devices to provide seamless access over different applications, the rising number of government initiatives to adopt biometrics, the growing need for surveillance and security due to the threats of terrorist attacks, and the increasing penetration of biometric technology in automotive and enterprise applications.

The growth of the multi-factor authentication segment, thought to be the fastest growing segment in this area, is attributed to the increasing deployment and the need for security to avoid hacking attacks on sensitive information, especially in government and defence applications. The combination of multiple identifiers adds an extra level of security, making the system more effective, accurate, and reliable. In addition, a multimodal biometric system can reduce the failure to enroll (FTE) and failure to capture (FTC) rates. The rapid development of biometric smart cards for payment and identification purposes is expected to drive the growth of the multi-factor authentication segment.

Contact-based biometric systems include palm, fingerprint, and signature recognition systems. Of these, fingerprint recognition systems have been in the market for the longest period. Widespread adoption of fingerprint recognition systems is driving the market for contact-based biometric systems. Since fingerprint recognition is mostly used in contact-based biometric systems, the increasing demand for fingerprint recognition solutions would have a positive impact on contact-based biometric systems. Signature recognition is also gaining traction owing to the low deployment and procurement cost associated with this technology. Emerging applications such as sports and entertainment are also expected to deploy fingerprint recognition solutions extensively in the coming years.

Key players identified by the researchers and named in the biometric system market report include Thales, Safran, NEC, Assa Abloy, Fujitsu, Precise Biometrics, Secunet, Stanley Security, and Cognitec.