A World UIN

It's a big world.The human population of the world is over 7 billion. When you stop to consider what a huge number of people this is, it is a number so large that it is difficult to comprehend. Acuity Market Intelligence is a company that studies the biometric industry, writes reports on their research and sell it to investors and industry professionals. Acuity is saying that almost half of the world's population, 3.5 billion people, will have a chip-based, biometrically verified national ID by 2018. That is an astonishing number of people.

Half the world will be national eID card holders by 2018

New in-depth research has found that the global market for National Electronic ID (eID) programs will generate $54 billion in revenues between 2013 to 2018. During this time, the number of National eID cards in circulation will double from 1.75 billion to 3.5 billion - almost half the world's population.

Acuity Market Intelligence gave Planet Biometrics a sneak preview of its new report - “The Global National eID Industry Report: 2014 Edition” indicating Asia, with its vast population, will dominate the market representing nearly 70% of all National eID cards issued.

The report indicates a sustainable market value in the $7-10 billion annual revenue range over the next five years. The number of annual National eIDs issued peaks at 800 million in 2017 and drops back to 740 million in 2018.

Acuity considers National eID programs in the following categories:

Category 1: Chip or Optical storage based National ID card with or without biometrics;

Category 2: A Traditional or non-chip based ID card leveraging biometrics to ensure each cardholder is uniquely identified;

Category 3: A biometric based centralized registry that issues a unique identity number for the enrolled population.

Report revenues include the revenues from all three categories whereas the actual National eID card unit count only includes chip-based or optical storage cards.

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