Global RFID market up by 5%

Johannesburg, 15 Jul 2009

There has been a surge in orders for radio frequency identification (RFID) this year, says IDTechEx.

The RFID research firm points out that, despite the world's largest RFID project, the $6 billion China National ID card scheme, being completed a year earlier, the global RFID market is rising 5% this year to $5.56 billion.

In the global financial meltdown, which has seen car production plummet by 50%, RFID sales are still going strong with orders up 10%. The largest orders stem from the US, UK, China and Japan.

Projects aplenty

The IDTechEx RFID Knowledgebase is tracking over 3 800 projects in 110 countries. In China, the number of RFID projects tracked has more than doubled to 281 in only two years.

According to IDTechEx, CSC and IBM have landed an order for $570 million to upgrade the UK e-passport applications and enrolment system. Unisys was one of four companies selected by the US Army Program Executive Office-Enterprise Information Systems for a contract for the RFID III programme. This contract has a total ceiling value of $428 million.

IDTechEx says RFID tags are attached to approximately 125 000 shipments of US military supplies each week. Transcore landed $63 million for RFID-based non-stop tolling in Florida. The US has seen many multimillion-dollar RFID orders placed recently. One example is a $2 million order on Awarepoint to provide a real-time locating system for Jackson Health System, continuously tracking 12 000 key assets.

An order for $8 million worth of RFID-enabled casino chips has been placed by establishments in Macao and the Philippines, and Hong Kong is particularly active in RFID. Japan continues to buy over 90% of the world's RFID-enabled mobile phones.

IDTechEx adds that Gemalto has ordered 900 000 RFID national ID cards for Lithuania, valued at more than $6 million. Infineon received a $24 million order for passport RFID chips in India and Axcess clocked $3.5 million for a port security infrastructure RFID system in Trinidad. Moscow Metro has ordered about $10 million worth of RFID tickets.