Apple Inc, will buy AuthenTec, a fingerprint sensor technology developer for $356 million. The deal could place the iPhone on the edge of growing market of mobile payments.
AuthenTec shares, whose sensor chips can be found on PC’s and mobile devices, closed at $8 per share, more than Apple has agreed to pay.
Apple agreed to pay 58 percent premium to the Melbourne, Florida based company, which also counts Korean mobile devices manufacturer and Apple’s fierce rival – Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. as its largest customers.
The world’s most valuable company hardly makes any acquisitions and usually buys startups for its cutting-edge technological needs, but AuthenTec is a public company that Apple has acquired.
AuthenTec, which had gone public in 2007, started as Harris Semiconductor in 1998. The company issued mobile security software licenses to tech companies like Samsung, and fingerprint sensor technology PC’s makers Hewlett-Packard and Dell Inc.
The fingerprint technology, widely used by mobile phone users in Japan for verification of mobile payments, could facilitate Apple in bringing those services to the US markets, where mobile bill payments haven’t been so popular.
