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Apple Buys Samsung's Android Security Partner AuthenTec For $356M

Amid fierce smartphone competition between Samsung and Apple that has spilled into a multinational patent battle, it looks like Apple may have opened yet another front on the M&A side: it is buying mobile security company AuthenTec …

TechCrunch Ingrid Lunden

Context & Ripple Effects

Apple's fight with Android has been running on two tracks since late 2011: a patent war of attrition with Android built through acquisitions, and an earlier deal with a patent troll to add litigation ammunition. The AuthenTec purchase opens a third front — instead of buying patents or lawsuits, Apple is buying a supplier out from under its rival.

AuthenTec was Samsung's Android security partner, so the $356M price buys Apple both the technology and the denial: Samsung loses a vendor relationship at the height of a multinational patent battle. The breadth of same-day pickup — Reuters, Forbes, ZDNet, Computerworld and others — signals how directly the deal reads as a move against Samsung, with ZDNet framing it explicitly as blocking Android in the enterprise BYOD market.

First-order effects

  • Samsung immediately loses its Android security partner, forcing it to re-source authentication technology while its flagship devices compete head-to-head with the iPhone.
  • AuthenTec's fingerprint-sensing and security credentials become Apple-exclusive assets, removing a capability rival Android OEMs could previously license.

Second-order effects

  • Android device makers must consolidate around alternative security and biometric suppliers, concentrating demand among AuthenTec's remaining competitors.
  • The enterprise BYOD segment — where ZDNet framed the deal as decisive — becomes harder for Android to defend without equivalent hardware-level security, shifting corporate purchasing toward iOS.

Third-order effects

  • If acquiring shared suppliers becomes standard practice, smartphone competition shifts from courts and marketing into the component layer, with platform owners buying up vendor relationships to lock rivals out.
  • Security and authentication technology consolidates around vertically integrated platform owners, leaving independent mobile-security firms as acquisition targets rather than long-term merchants.

The trend: The smartphone wars are expanding from patent litigation into supply-chain M&A, as platform owners acquire the shared component and security partners their rivals depend on.

Related: Apple · AuthenTec · Samsung · Android Security · Apple slowly gaining patents to fight its war of attrition with Android

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