For Synaptics, the business of making fingerprint readers a part of smartphones is still in its infancy.
Last year, Apple drummed up attention for the benefits of unlocking a smartphone with the simple press of a finger when it introduced a fingerprint reader on the iPhone 5S. In February, Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S5, complete with its own fingerprint reader.
Since then, though, there's been little buzz about the feature. But Synaptics CEO Rick Bergman believes that will change. He said a lot of smartphones will debut next year with fingerprint readers, calling out the next Mobile World Congress trade show as a coming out moment for fingerprint sensors.
"Samsung is our largest customer, but you'll see a lot of other manufacturers with fingerprint reading capabilities," Bergman said in an interview. As costs come down, more high-end and midtier smartphones will get their own readers, he added.
Bergman would know; Synaptics makes fingerprint sensors for various electronic gadgets. It supplies the sensor found in the Galaxy S5 and the HTC One Max, though it doesn't build the iPhone 5S's fingerprint reader. Apple uses its own reader, built by a company called Authentec, which it acquired in 2012.
Biometrics represents one of Synaptics largest growth opportunities. The company posted a 43 percent increase in its fiscal fourth-quarter revenue thanks in part to the better-than-expected performance of its biometric business. Bergman sees that business eventually taking off because of three main benefits: convenience in unlocking phones, security and a method of confirming a transaction.
Bergman, however, admits that fingerprint readers could be better, and he said customers had shown some frustration with them. While his company's study shows that it's quicker to unlock a phone with a finger tap than a typed-in a pass-code, there's less tolerance for errors when it comes to fingerprint sensors.
Synaptics is working on improving the readers, initially by reducing the split-second delay between pressing the sensor and the phone's response.
"It needs to be like the on/off button," he said. "We need to make it faster, and today, it's not the case."
