Review of RFID in 2007

In the build up to the annual IDTechEx RFID USA event in Boston this February and the latest IDTechEx RFID forecasts, Raghu Das reviews RFID progress in 2007.

January 15, 2008—In round figures, the value of the RFID market grew strongly to $5 billion in 2007, mainly powered by a peak in deliveries of the Chinese national ID card with about $2 billion of cards and infrastructure being delivered by Chinese suppliers. That made China the biggest RFID market but if we peel that away, we see the USA as the biggest market. Globally, the RFID business remained government driven with the Healthcare sector showing particularly strong growth in projects and the Financial, Security, Safety sector dwarfing all others in both expenditure and number of projects. It accounted for a massive 48% of market value with Passenger Transport, Automotive coming second with 19% value share. We refer to the value of tags, systems and support combined. However, let us look beneath the surface, because there are surprises in store.