In the recently concluded 2018 Mobile World Congress Shanghai, Fingerprints made a splash by exhibiting a full array of its state-of-art biometrics solutions. Such an elaborative showcase not only reflects the company’s ambition of becoming a complete player in the industry, but also its strategic priorities in three market segments.

Mobile Fingerprint Sensors: Make OEMs Believe  
Fingerprints has always been the leader in this segment for touch sensors. In 2017, it reported a global market share of 40%. As the no.1 player in the industry, the company’s fingerprint sensors have been deployed by some 330 smartphone models.

While smartphone OEMs have always recognized the technological excellence of Fingerprints’ solutions, they have been continuously under tremendous pressure of cost reduction. During the MWC Shanghai, Fingerprints announced its highly anticipated fourth-generation fingerprint sensor FPC1511. This cutting-edge sensor aims at addressing the cost optimization demand of OEM customers and giving them a compelling reason for deploying Fingerprints’ solution.   

FPC1511 is a further evolution of third-generation sensors and is currently Fingerprints’ most cost-optimized solution for smartphone manufacturers. Another feature for FPC1511 is that 3D enabled hardware and perpetual algorithm development results in world-leading biometric performance for fingerprints sensors, even with a smaller surface area.

FPC1511 has undergone extensive testing and verification, and prototypes are available for smartphone manufacturers in collaboration with leading module manufacturers. Full qualification of FPC1511 is scheduled for the third quarter of 2018, and the first commercial smartphones integrating FPC1511 are expected to be launched in late 2018 or early 2019.

Contactless Smartcard: Alternative Option of Secure Payment
In the modern digital era, fingerprint identification is arguably the most common and convenient authentication technology. The high adoption rate of this technology in smartphones has driven its popularity among consumers. This has laid the foundation of applying fingerprint identification in payment cards to enabling convenient and secure payment for consumers. Fingerprints is a pioneer in the market for biometric payment card, and have the widest footprint of ongoing market trials.

At the MWC Shanghai, Fingerprints stole the spotlight with an intriguing demonstration of its biometric smartcard to the visitors. A coffee and snack trolley had been set up at Fingerprint’s booth. The trolley was equipped with a POS terminal that accepted Fingerprint’s biometric smartcard. Visitors were encouraged to pitch in the demonstration together with Fingerprints’ staff. They had an initiative, direct experience in using this contactless payment card to “purchase” a cup of freshly brewed coffee and authentic Swedish pastry at the trolley. Surely the delicious treat together with the remarkable performance of Fingerprints card impressed the visitors.

According to a Fingerprints’ survey, 50% of the global respondents are willing to pay extra for a biometric card for the additional trust it offers. For China per se, the percentage is even higher and reaches 67%.

Though mobile payment is very popular in China, the volume of bank card has also been growing steadily and remains as the key payment method in the country. According to the People’s Bank of China, in 2017, bank card transactions in China rose 2.7 percent to 762 trillion yuan, while the number of bank cards in use went up 9.3% to 6.7 billion by the end of 2017.

Embracing 5G Era: Exploring New Biometrics Applications
At MWC Shanghai, the three key telecom carriers of China had shed light on their vision and plans for 5G. As 5G is around the corner, consumers are going to face a fast-tempo digital world and the importance of security will be even more eminent. In light of this, Fingerprints has been vigorously expanding the boundaries of biometrics applications such as automobile and IoT. It is committed to leverage its biometrics leadership and technological excellence to enable a convenient, secure future for human.

Click here to watch our latest video showing Fingerprints’ smartcard demo.