The biggest opportunity for RFID
The biggest opportunity for RFID is the item-level tagging of all things. This ultimately calls for a very low-cost tag, something that printed and chipless RFID technologies have already demonstrated or have the potential to achieve this. Interestingly, few of the biggest chip RFID suppliers are working on these technologies.
Instead, printers, packagers, and electronics companies are leading development, some seeing the ultra-low-cost RFID tag as just the beginning – with integrated ultra-low-cost components such as displays, sensors and power to come.
This is the only report to cover the technologies, players, opportunities, and challenges of what will be the most widely used RFID technologies. Detailed forecasts are given and global progress assessed.
Ten-year forecasts
RFID tags that do not contain a silicon chip are called chipless tags – some of which can be printed. The primary potential benefit of the most promising chipless tags is that eventually they could be printed directly on products and packaging for 0.1 cents and replace ten trillion barcodes yearly with something far more versatile and reliable.
The next ten years will see a rapid gain in market share of mainstream printed and chipless RFID tags. The numbers sold globally will rise from 40 million in 2009 to 624 billion in 2019. By value, printed and chipless versions will rise from less than $5 million in 2009 to $3.93 billion in 2019, one-third of all income from RFID tags in 2019 because most of the increase in penetration will be by price advantage.
In 2019, the average price of an item level tag will be 1 cent but chipless versions will be less – particularly so when printed directly onto packaging. However, only a small proportion will be directly printed onto packaging by 2019. Chip versions will be about 4 cents for the highest volumes in 2019 and chipless versions about 0.4 cents.
This report gives the penetration of printed and chipless RFID into many different market verticals over the next ten years. It gives an assessment of the different technology options and profiles of the main companies developing these.
Forecasts by technology type
For the lowest cost technologies, we consider how the cost structure will probably not be on a per tag basis, where the value of the tags in hundreds of billions is only a few million dollars, but those involved will make money on licensing the technology, readers, data management, etc.
What you will learn
- The world’s only in-depth report covers printed and chipless RFID technologies and companies.
- Detailed market forecasts by printed and chipless technology from 2009 to 2019
- Analysis of the technologies being implemented today
- Detailed case histories and company profiles of the many trials and sales successes of printed and chipless RFID
- Sales leads and opportunities
- Unbiased assessment of who will be the winners and losers in the shakeout and what the future will bring.
