Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Although true item-level RFID is still years away, ABI Research is still confident that RFID sales will hit $5.4 billion this year. And it projects that number will reach $8.3 billion by 2014. The tagged segments expected to lead the way include real-time location systems, baggage handling, animal ID and a smidgen of item-level use in high-end fashion and other similar high-priced retail offerings.

“Other key opportunities include electronic vehicle registration, continued penetration of RFID-enabled e-ID/e-government documents—including health cards—and continued expansion of library systems. Also worth watching: slowed but continued progress in retail CPG supply chain management and multiple flavors of asset management that leverage RFID technologies, including specialty passive UHF tags,” said ABI’s practice director, Michael Liard. “Modernizing applications for RFID will grow more rapidly than their traditional predecessors such as access control, automobile immobilization, electronic toll collection and others that account for slightly more than 61 percent of the total market today. These applications are expected to grow 6 percent compounded annually from 2010 through 2014. In contrast, modernizing applications—animal ID, asset management, baggage handling, cargo tracking and security, POS-contactless payment, RTLS, supply chain management and ticketing—are forecast to grow roughly 19 percent in the same time period.”