RFID market to reach $5.35 billion

March 8, 2010

Latest analyst report finds auto-ID industry faring well, even though the affects of global recession are still being felt

Despite the economic doldrums, which required downward adjustments to ABI Research’s radio frequency identification (RFID) forecasts for 2009 and 2010, the outlook is good for steady growth through the next five years, according to new market data just released by the firm.

ABI Research practice director, Michael Liard reported: “We expect the overall RFID market to exceed $8.25 billion [£5.5bn] in 2014, or approximately $7.46 billion [£4.9bn] with automobile immobilisation excluded. That would represent a 14% compound annual growth rate [CAGR] over the next five years.”

Multiple application usage growth

The analyst added that automobile immobilisation 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 (£2.95bn), without automobile immobilisation; 15% more than the adjusted 2009 figure.

“Not all segments of the RFID market are created equal,” added 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.”

CPG adoption slow but steady

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. The researcher also said other application segments were worth watching, inclsuing slowed but continued progress in retail consumer packaged goods (CPG) supply chain management, and multiple flavours of asset management that use RFID technologies, including speciality passive UHF tags.

“Modernising” applications for RFID will grow more rapidly than their “traditional” predecessors such as access control, automobile immobilisation, electronic toll collection and others that account for slightly more than 61% of the total market today. These applications were expected to grow 6% compounded annually from 2010 through 2014. In contrast, modernising applications – animal ID, asset management, baggage handling, cargo tracking and security, point of sale (POS) contactless payments, RTLS, supply chain management, and ticketing – are forecast to grow roughly 19% in the same time period.

ABI Research’s “Semi-Annual RFID Market Data” report presents ABI Research's latest RFID market segmentation and forecasts for revenue, unit shipments, and applications.