A study from Report Buyer foresees a compound annual growth rate of 21.3% in the biometric market by 2012. Of the technologies currently available, fingerprint biometrics is expected to continue to hold the largest share of the biometric market with a growth from $1.3 billion in 2007 to $2.7 billion by 2012.

However, the largest growth in the market is expected to be facial recognition biometrics which is predicted to grow from $459 million in 2007 to $1.3 billion by 2012. The report also expects significant growth in all the emerging biometric technologies over the next four years as well.

Broken down by region, the report also credits Europe as currently being the area with the most growth recently, but expects growth elsewhere to be key over the next few years. With technology heavy countries like Japan and South Korea, as well as quickly developing countries like India and China, the report expects a growth to be driven from Asia.