Omdia: Under-Display Fingerprint Market Grew 8x in 2019, Keeps Growing in 2020

Omdia: Global shipments of fingerprint-on-display (FoD) sensors expanded by nearly a factor of eight in 2019 as these devices increasingly replace conventional capacitive chips in smartphones.

A total of 228.3M FoD sensors were shipped in 2019, up 674% from 29.5M in 2018, according to Omdia. With FoD sensors having reached the sweet spot for market pricing, FoD shipments are expected to continue rising at a tremendous rate in 2020, expanding to more than 400M units.

“FoD sensors have become a critical biometric identification technology for smartphones,” said Calvin Hsieh, director, touch and user interface at Omdia. “Today’s smartphone displays are longer than ever, completely covering the front sides of handsets and leaving no space to locate capacitive fingerprint sensor chips on the surface. FoD sensors bypass this issue because they are hidden beneath the display, allowing them to avoid influencing the appearance of smartphones. This advantage is generating massive demand growth for FoD sensors.”

More than 70 smartphone models integrated FoD in 2019. FoD technologies are mature and affordable, so the ASP of a fingerprint module can be as low as about $3 to $4, which is more cost-effective than alternative 3D facial recognition technologies.

Goodix is the leading FoD solution supplier with a 50% market share. The company has benefited from sales to Chinese smartphone brands.

Optical imaging CIS solutions accounted for a 79% shipment share of the FoD market, while the ultrasonic approach held 21% of the market in 2019. Due to growing market demand and more suppliers entering the business, Omdia estimates the optical imaging CIS solutions will grab an 88% share of shipments in 2020. FoD solution providers are also offering thinner microlens types of FoD solutions, which can reduce space usage to make room for more battery capacity inside of smartphones.