NEXT Biometrics ASA has received the industry’s first biometric smart card volume order. The initial order has a value of NOK 12 million and shipments are scheduled to start in Q3 2016. The first shipments will consist of rigid sensors.
Volumes to our undisclosed customer are expected to increase to a total of 650 000 units in 2017.
The on-going development with our customer is aiming to ship a mass-produced, fully flexible and ISO-compliant biometric smartcard that will meet all requirements in this segment during 2017. This collaboration is aiming at introducing biometrics into ISO standard smart cards – a market that currently is estimated to grow to several hundreds of millions units per annum.
NEXT CEO Tore Etholm-Idsøe says: “Our (undisclosed) customer has done an impressive job in bringing out this product, as the first of its kind, and they have a high profile end customer waiting to take contracted deliveries. We are very proud to say this is the world´s first mass production order for fingerprint sensors on smart cards.
For NEXT this is an important milestone as it demonstrates our leading position within the smart card market. As far as we know, no other company has yet managed to meet all mandatory ISO standard requirements. NEXT and a growing number of key industry players now seems to agree that NEXT technology is uniquely positioned for success in the smart card space. Being able to meet both the ISO and the real life mass market minimum requirements of sensor size is recognized as key to success in the quality critical smart card applications.
The Active Thermal Principle, patented by NEXT is perfectly suited for producing a flexible sensor with the size required for the solution to be secure and convenient for close to 100 per cent of a population, – and at an affordable price.”