While Face ID is rapidly gaining ground as an authentication method for smartphones, FINGERPRINT detection is the most popular biometric authentication method today and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Fingerprints are unique to every single individual and thus remain a reliable way to distinguish between people.

Smartphone manufacturers continue to experiment to find the optimal place for fingerprint sensors on smartphones.  Placement on the front, long championed by Apple, has given this position primacy in smartphones. But Apple’s decision, with the iPhone X, to drop a fingerprint sensor altogether has resulted in rear-placement fingerprint sensors coming to the fore.

Strategy Analytics in its new report Global Fingerprint Smartphone Sales Forecast by Placement: 2004 to 2023 tracks and forecasts the evolving role that fingerprint sensors have had in smartphones. From 2018 rear-placement has become the most popular position for fingerprint sensors on smartphones. In-display fingerprint sensors are, however, poised to grow in popularity. The report tracks in-display, front-placement, rear-placement, rear-placement behind glass body and side-placement fingerprint displays. It is a comprehensive report that tracks and forecasts all aspects of fingerprint sensor placement in smartphones.

Clients of Strategy Analytics’ Emerging Device Technologies practice can access the report here.