AutoID & Data Capture Blog

In the spirit of Halloween, it is time to ask ourselves: “Is the RFID market in 2011 full of tricks or treats?”  With the market racing toward the end of 2011, we are already being asked to give our take on the RFID market this year. There are still two full months left for action, but if I look into my analyst bag of goodies this Halloween, I see lots of RFID treats, but there are a few “tricks,” too.  Part I will look at the “RFID treats,” while Monday’s Part II will highlight a few “RFID tricks.”

RFID Treats:

• The RFID market continues to penetrate a broad range of application areas and industries.  There are the RFID stalwart applications such as access control, electronic toll collection (ETC), contactless ticketing, e-ID, library management and others that continue to generate solid revenues and opportunities for vendors and solutions providers targeting those markets.  Then there are the burgeoning areas of RFID in application areas such as supply chain management (e.g., item-level tracking in fashion apparel as well as anti-counterfeiting and brand protection in pharmaceuticals), asset management (most notably using passive UHF), RF-enabled sensing and monitoring (e.g., food safety and traceability, biologics) and electronic vehicle registration (EVR) as an extension of AVI (automatic vehicle identification) to name a few. 
• Innovation continues unabated in the industry. From new NFC inlays/tags to new passive UHF RFID readers, chipsets and modules to new RFID tag ICs to new software packages (including cloud-based solutions), many innovative products and solutions have been introduced in 2011.  Avery Dennison, Identive NFC, UPM RFID and others launched new lines of NFC inlays and tags. Alien Technology, Motorola, Nordic ID and others unveiled new finished, dedicated reader offerings.  New passive UHF EPC ICs from Impinj (Monza 5), Alien Technology (Higgs-4), NXP (UCODE I2C), Tego (TegoChip 2000), and CEITEC (CTC 13000) have also been released.  New cloud-based software and services from IGear, InSync, Queralt, RFID Global Solution, Terso and others were also announced this year.  Again, innovation has been on full display and we expect the trend to continue in 2012 and beyond.
• Mobility plays an increasing role in RFID product, solution and market development each year, and 2011 was no exception.  New RFID handhelds, cloud-based solutions and NFC initiatives have taken center stage as vendors, integrators and end-users embrace the simple fact that mobility matters – especially among an increasingly mobile workforce and consumer base.

We invite you to come back to this Blog on Monday to see what “RFID tricks” VDC Research has identified so far in 2011.