AuthenTec Celebrates Industry Record with 50 Millionth Fingerprint Sensor Shipment

2009-10-26 14:06:01 -

AuthenTec (NASDAQ: AUTH), the world’s leading provider of smart fingerprint sensors and solutions, today announced the shipment of its 50 millionth fingerprint sensor, establishing a new record for the fingerprint sensor market. Founded in October 1998, AuthenTec established a previous industry benchmark of 25 million sensors in November 2007 and took less than two years to double that mark to

50 million. AuthenTec’s 50 millionth sensor was shipped to Fujitsu Limited for integration into its newest smart phone, where it will be used for touch-powered features including security, navigation, personalization and convenience.

“The shipment of our 50 millionth sensor is a significant achievement which underscores our leadership position in providing advanced technologies and products to a broad cross section of industry leading OEMs in the mobile and PC markets. It also highlights the dedication of our team here at AuthenTec and, together, we are very proud of this achievement,” said AuthenTec Chairman & CEO Scott Moody. “We have continually been aggressive in driving new technologies to the market and being able to deliver those new products in high volumes. Especially in today’s market, customers value a supplier that demonstrates innovation, financial stability, product reliability and quality – this has proven to be a competitive advantage for AuthenTec.”


“We congratulate AuthenTec on this tremendous milestone and are proud to have played a key role in AuthenTec’s success,” said Hideyuki Saso, President of Fujitsu’s Ubiquitous Products Business Group. “AuthenTec products continue to bring multiple touch-powered features to millions of Fujitsu PCs, cell phones and mobile devices, and we look forward to the continued expansion of our co-development activities and our longstanding partnership.”

“Although we’re proud of achieving this milestone, we are even more excited about the opportunity before us,” added Moody. “We are now focused on shipping our next 50 million sensors, but more as a solution provider than simply a sensor provider. With the recent introductions of our new AES1660 smart sensor and our new TrueSuite™ application, we have moved from a sensor supplier to a solution provider focused in identity management, personal security and multi-touch functionality. With more introductions planned later this year, we will be offering these same expanded capabilities to the mobile market. We continue to firmly believe that there is a billion unit per year opportunity in front of us for our products, and we believe our newest products position us well to capture a significant portion of that opportunity going forward.”

AuthenTec is an ISO9001-certified provider of fingerprint sensors and solutions with the broadest product and IP portfolio in the silicon fingerprint sensor industry. The Company recently expanded its offering to include new smart sensor hardware, software and client applications for consumer PCs, netbooks and smartphones.


Sensor Evolution

AuthenTec’s first commercial fingerprint sensor product, the AF-S1, was introduced in 1999. This postage stamp-sized touch sensor sold for $35 and offered limited functionality – primarily fingerprint sensing and recognition for user authentication. The Company pioneered some of today’s smaller, slide-type sensors and introduced its first slide sensor, the best-selling AES25XX series in 2004, offering a compact footprint for easy integration into notebooks and cell phones. Today’s newest smart sensors from AuthenTec measure are even smaller and now offer multiple touch-powered features including touchpad-like navigation, personalization and one-touch conveniences including security.

In addition to expanded functionality, AuthenTec’s new smart sensors offer improved biometric performance, low-power consumption, multiple packaging and form factors including lighted LED options, and low bill of materials (BOM) costs needed for easy integration into today’s smartphones, notebook PCs and netbooks.


Moving Beyond Sensors

Complementing these new sensors is AuthenTec’s recently announced TrueSuite™ client application software -- an intuitive PC application that simplifies the PC user’s connection with their online social life and digital identity. TrueSuite is a simple and customizable user interface optimized for today’s consumer notebooks and netbooks that simplifies how users log on to password-protected Web sites, quickly launch multiple favorite Web sites with the swipe of a single finger, and export and import passwords and security settings to/from different PCs. TrueSuite is compatible with multiple operating systems and web browsers, and has been optimized for the Windows 7 OS.

Millions of today’s PCs, cell phones, PDAs and other products include AuthenTec fingerprint sensors to enable security, convenience, personalization and navigation. Based on the Company’s patented TruePrint® technology to deliver extremely accurate and reliable fingerprint imaging, AuthenTec sensors read below the surface of the skin to the live layer, where a person’s true fingerprint resides.

TruePrint allows AuthenTec to offer the smallest sensors on the market, yet provide all the security, privacy and convenience afforded in larger form factor devices.



About AuthenTec

AuthenTec brings multiple touch-powered features including navigation, personalization, convenience and security to 50 million PCs and peripherals, cell phones and other products. The Company’s newest generation of smart sensors, software and TrueSuite™ client applications give users secure one-touch access to their favorite websites, online social networks and digital identity. AuthenTec has the broadest product and patent portfolio in the industry today, and helps enable the Power of Touch® for millions of people at home, at work or on the move. For more information, visit www.authentec.com : cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww .. or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/authentecnews.



AuthenTecBrent Dietz, Director of Communications, 321-308-1320 brent.dietz@authentec.com : mailto:brent.dietz@authentec.com