The RFID market will be worth US$13.2 billion in 2020, a rise from this year's $10.1 billion, according to a recent study by Research and Markets.
The report, "RFID Forecasts, Players and Opportunities 2016-2026," finds 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.
This industry is forecast to rise to $13.2 billion in 2020, the study finds.
Also according to the report,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 percent 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 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, it 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 labels. However, in 2015 UHF tag sales by value will only be 11 percent of the value of HF tag sales, mainly because HF tags where used for security have a higher price point versus the cheaper, usually disposable UHF tags used for tagging things, the study finds.