Passive RFID

More than five years later than the industry had expected, market research and events firm IDTechEx find that the passive RFID tag market is now seeing tremendous volume growth.

The latest RFID market research from IDTechEx finds that in 2012 the value of the entire RFID market will be $7.67 billion, up from $6.51 billion in 2011. This includes tags, readers and software/services for RFID cards, labels, fobs and all other form factors.

IDTechEx has recently completed its survey of the global RFID industry which provides detailed market forecasts segmented in many different ways. In this article, report author Raghu Das summarizes some of the findings from the report "RFID Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2011-2021".

IDTechEx projects that the market for passive RFID tags will grow to over $10 billion in sales by 2019. Much of it will continue to use silicon chips. Dr Peter Harrop forecasts the Printed RFID market for 2010.

Numerous apparel companies have reported increased sales of up to 20% using RFID to monitor shelf stock levels. It is now emerging as the first major application of RFID in retail, with a strong business case. In 2008, IDTechEx research finds that 38% of the money spent on RFID in retail is specifically for apparel tagging. Here Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman of research firm IDTechEx, summarises the findings from the new IDTechEx report RFID in Apparel 2008-2018.

One million transistors is not enough for the RFID chip in the new e-passports because, increasingly, they have to double as driver's licenses, multipurpose cards and other media.

Last year, about $2.5 billion was spent on tags and systems at HF (13.56MHz), ten times the amount on RFID at any other frequency and representing 50% of the global RFID market. Now IDTechEx tracks a rush of technology innovation and new market opportunities.

In the build up to the annual IDTechEx RFID USA event in Boston this February and the latest IDTechEx RFID forecasts, Raghu Das reviews RFID progress in 2007.

The prosperous RFID business is on track to grow from about $5 billion in 2007 today to over $25 billion in 2017. Without collusion, most analysts agree to figures in that region and several of them see huge volumes of extremely low cost tags forming a part of the growth - even hundreds of billions in ten years from now. This seems to sit awkwardly with some press reporting that RFID retail initiatives have stalled. As one of those analysts, let IDTechEx explain.