According to ABI Research, a market intelligence company specializing in global connectivity and emerging technology, in the next five years, that popularity is set to explode.
“We expect the overall RFID market to exceed $8.25 billion in 2014, or approximately $7.46 billion with automobile immobilization excluded,” said Practice Director Michael Liard. “That would represent a 14% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years.”
Whereas automobile immobilization has the largest single RFID application, it also has a low growth rate and is often excluded when looking at the technology’s market trends. In 2010, the RFID market is estimated to reach $4.47 billion without automobile immobilization’s figures.
This sunny forecast comes on the heels of the downward adjustments the firm made when predicting the technology’s 2009 and 2010 outlooks. Now, however, things have changed, not only with popularity but also in terms of which industries will push the proliferation.
“Not all segments of the RFID market are created equal,” said 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.”
ABI Research also states key growth opportunities for RFID include electronic vehicle registration, RFID-enabled e-ID/e-government documents, and the expansion of library systems. On the lower end of the growth spectrum, the firm predicts retail CPG supply chain management and other asset management needs will be increasingly met with RFID technology, just not at such a fast pace.
In addition, as the anti-counterfeiting movement gains momentum, RFID is considered among the top trace and track technologies businesses can use to improve their loss prevention. According to a report by Visionshopsters, the global anti-counterfeit packaging market could be worth as much as $79 billion by 2014, with the RFID market poised to have the highest growth potential in that time period.
