RFID Forecasts, Players and Opportunities 2016-2026

Sep 22, 2016

IDTechEx Research has tracked the RFID market since 1999. This report provides detailed data and analysis built on years of extensive research including interviews with RFID adopters and solution providers in the various applicational RFID markets, giving an unprecedented level of insight into the total RFID industry and what is really happening. Predominately our research is conducted through interviews with companies across the supply chain, many of whom we have signed non disclosure agreements with and have been allowed access to data which we aggregate to provide the totals.

IDTechEx find that in 2015, the total RFID market is worth $10.1 billion, up from $9.5 billion in 2014 and $8.8 billion in 2013. This includes tags, readers and software/services for RFID cards, labels, fobs and all other form factors, for both passive and active RFID. IDTechEx forecast that to rise to $13.2 billion in 2020.

In retail, RFID continues to be adopted for apparel tagging - that application alone will demand 4.6 billion RFID labels in 2016 - which still has some way to go with RFID penetrating about 15% of the total addressable market for apparel in 2016. RFID in the form of tickets used for transit will demand 800 million tags in 2016. The tagging of animals (such as pigs, sheep and pets) is substantial as it continues to be a legal requirement in many more territories, with 420 million tags being used for this sector in 2016. In total, IDTechEx expects that 8.9 billion tags will be sold in 2015 and 10.4 billion in 2016. Most of that growth is from passive UHF RFID (RAIN RFID) labels. However, in 2015 UHF (RAIN RFID) tag sales by value will only be 11% of the value of HF tag sales, mainly because HF tags where used for security (such as payments, access etc) have a higher price point versus the cheaper, usually disposable UHF (RAIN RFID) tags used for tagging things.

Source: IDTechEx