New research has found that biometric systems are gaining acceptance in India with more than 350,000 iris and fingerprint units being shipped in the year to June 2014.

According to 6Wresearch, the Indian Biometrics Market (looking at single and multi-modal) registered annual shipments of more than 350,000 units with single-modal biometric devices capturing around 74% share of the entire Indian Market.

The company said that 3M Cogent led the market followed by ESSL.

Key highlights of the research found:

more than 40 vendors shipped biometric devices;

the top three players captured around 62% share of the market;

in the multi-modal segment, Time & Attendance systems captured a major share of the market.

At present, says 6Wresearch, the usage of biometric systems is restricted to only a few sectors. However, their demand is likely to increase across many more verticals, such as airlines, banking and financial services, travel and transport, government, healthcare, consumer electronics and retail over the coming quarters.

Increasing use of biometric data by the Government of India will enhance the adoption of biometric devices across the private sector, says the report.

The demand for biometric devices is also expected to accelerate with the introduction of biometric authentication systems in government pilot schemes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Additionally, Bank of Punjab has launched a new program to provide the auto disbursement subsidy through biometric cards, say the authors.