ZT: RFID market to enjoy steady growth

Despite the economic let-ups, RFID outlook is good for steady growth through the next five years, according to new market data by ABI Research. Practice director Michael Liard reported, "We expect the overall RFID market to exceed $8.25 billion in 2014, or approximately $7.46 billion with automobile immobilization excluded. That would represent a 14 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years." Automobile immobilization is the largest single RFID application and has a low growth rate which impacts overall market size, so it is often excluded when examining market trends. This year alone, the RFID market appears set to reach a size of $4.47 billion (without automobile immobilization), 15 percent more than the adjusted 2009 figure. "Not all segments of the RFID market are created equal," adds Liard. "To 2014, the greatest growth will be found in RTLS (Real Time Location Systems), baggage handling, animal ID, and item-level tagging in fashion apparel and retail." Other key opportunities include electronic vehicle registration, continued penetration of RFID-enabled e-ID/e-government documents (including health cards), and continued expansion of library systems. Also worth watching: slowed but continued progress in retail CPG supply chain management, and multiple flavors of asset management that leverage RFID technologies, including specialty passive UHF tags. "Modernizing" applications for RFID will grow more rapidly than their "traditional" predecessors such as access control, automobile immobilization, electronic toll collection and others that account for slightly more than 61 percent of the total market today. These applications are expected to grow 6 percent compounded annually from 2010 through 2014. In contrast, modernizing applications—animal ID, asset management, baggage handling, cargo tracking and security, POS-contactless payment, RTLS, supply chain management, and ticketing—are forecast to grow roughly 19 percent in the same time period