RFID market to reach $11.2B this year

The total RFID market will be worth $11.2 billion in 2017, up from $10.52 billion in 2016 and $9.95 billion in 2015, according to a recent report from IDTechEx Research. This includes tags, readers and software/services for RFID labels, cards, fobs and other form factors, for passive and active RFID. 

In retail, RFID continues to be rolled-out for apparel tagging predominately – that application alone will demand 8.7 Billion RFID labels in 2017 – which still has plenty of room for growth since this is less than 20% penetration of the total addressable market for apparel in 2017. In other areas, RFID in the form of tickets used for transit will demand 825 million tags in 2017 and 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 480 million tags being used for this sector in 2017.

In total, IDTechEx expects that 18.2 billion tags will be sold in 2017 versus 15.2 billion in 2016. Most of that growth is from passive UHF (RAIN) RFID labels. However, in 2017 UHF RFID tag sales by value will be 25% 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 labels used for tagging things.