The global iris recognition market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.8% during the forecast period 2017-2023.

The market is driven by factors such as integration of iris scanners in smartphones, increased use in government projects, rising incidence of fraudulent activities & security concerns, and enhanced demand from the consumer electronics segment. The future potential of the market is promising owing to opportunities such as R&D initiatives, increasing number of distribution channels, enhanced demand from the travel/immigration industry, and increased adoption in enterprises. The market growth is curbed by restraining factors such as high costs, the gap in user's understanding of the device, the vulnerability of iris recognition systems, and intrusion of privacy.

The convergence of market forces and parallel innovation-enabling technologies are encouraging the emergence of innovative products at an unprecedented rate. The cost of high-end products will reduce considerably in the coming years due to technological advancements and introduction of new devices in the market. The future market growth would be driven by rapid adoption by the government and the usage of biometrics in criminal identification.

Iris recognition technology blends with other technologies such as computer vision, statistical inferences, optics, and pattern recognition. The application areas for iris recognition are varied, and consumer electronics is one major area. Recently, iris scanners are used in various mobile devices; Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 features an iris scanner and is also found in Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL Windows phones. It is being used in multiple editions of Fujitsu Arrow Devices, available through NTT Docomo, a pioneer in smartphone iris biometrics.