RFID Positioned for Growth

There were a couple of significant RFID news items this week. The first was a report indicating that the global radio-frequency identification (RFID) market is growing despite the fact that the world’s largest RFID project - the $6-billion China National ID card scheme - was completed a year earlier. According to IDTechEx, the global RFID market is rising 5 percent this year to $5.56 billion. Most of the action has been in the US, where the largest orders continue to be placed, as well as in the UK, China, and Japan.

The second was a contract for Micronetics who announced that it has received an order in excess of $750K for initial beta testing with a major retailer for its forklift mounted radio frequency identification (RFID) antenna sensor system. The forklift sensor system has recently completed a successful pre-production test phase, and will now begin beta testing with deployments over the next several months. These beta test sites represent approximately 7 percent of the retailer’s total locations. This order is a portion of a purchase agreement containing an option for full scale production roll-out upon successful completion of this phase.

We plan to cover location based technologies in one of our issues later in the year. With the addition of other location technologies such as WiFi, GPS and local positioning systems, this segment should be well position for long term growth. I think the companies that can integrate these technologies seamlessly and offer complete solutions will have a leg up on the competition. What new developments have you seen in this market???