Selfie Authentication to See Major Growth Even as Fingerprint Sensors Tighten Mobile Grip: Juniper Research

“… the report predicts that most face-based authentication on smartphones will be software-based, with more than 1.3 billion devices supporting facial recognition software by 2024.”

Selfie authentication is here to say, but nor is smartphone fingerprint scanning going anywhere – that’s the upshot from a new report from Juniper Research.

Entitled “Mobile Payment Authentication: Biometrics, Regulation & Forecasts 2019-2024”, the report predicts that specialized facial recognition hardware, such as that used in Apple’s Face ID system on its most recent iPhone models, will be the fastest growing form of biometric hardware on smartphones during the forecast period. Such hardware was in place on about 96 million smartphones last year, Juniper Research says, and it will ultimately reach 800 million devices in 2024.

That having been said, the report predicts that most face-based authentication on smartphones will be software-based, with more than 1.3 billion devices supporting facial recognition software by 2024. This trend will play out largely thanks to advancements in Artificial Intelligence, which are helping to make software-based facial recognition strong enough for use in authenticating mobile payments.

Meanwhile, “fingerprint hardware will remain a dominant element in biometric payments,” according to a report summary. Fingerprint sensors will be used in more than 4.6 billion smartphones, and Juniper Research expects that “fingerprint payments will take the lead in this market as standards coalesce around the technology more easily than for facial recognition payments.”

This all lines up with the trends that have played out in mobile biometrics over the last few years. Apple helped to catalyze an industry-wide shift toward mobile facial recognition with its launch of Face ID, but fingerprint scanning has remained a nearly ubiquitous smartphone feature, with a growing number of device makers embracing newer in-display fingerprint scanning technology.

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January 7, 2019 – by Alex Perala