RFID market to reach US$3 billion by
2010
By Laurie Sullivan | 15 December 2005 08:00 AEST | General
News
Gartner expects the radio frequency identification technology
(RFID) market worldwide to reach US$504 million in 2005, up 39
percent from the previous year, the research firm reported
Tuesday.
As more industries adopt the technology toward the end of 2006, new
licence revenue will climb to US$751 million. By 2010, Gartner
forecasts worldwide RFID spending to surpass US$3 billion.
A big variable remains: Will adopters carry through with planned
projects?
"The underlying phenomena that makes the RFID market difficult to
calculate is the binary nature of deployment decisions," said Jeff
Woods, research vice president at Gartner. "Either Boeing deploys
RFID or they don't. These companies are large and cause enormous
swings that make the market volatile."
Balancing the market is the sheer number of applications that Woods
estimates at more than 100. Industries with the greatest
opportunities to use RFID include retail, aerospace and defence,
while the healthcare, logistics and pharmaceutical industries will
adopt RFID the fastest.
Retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores, Target, and Best Buy that have
deployed RFID, say benefits come from increased visibility on where
products are in the supply chain at any given time. This helps to
keep store shelves stocked with merchandise customers demand
most.
IT-savvy retailer Wal-Mart already runs sophisticated analytic
software to manage merchandising. It also has detailed business
processes to determine the required merchandise in each store.
In-store operational processes for many retailers is where
quantitative processes breakdown, Woods said. "That's what RFID can
help a retailers do, bring analytic capabilities to the last
frontier, the store floor," he said.
The potential for high-rewards in exchange for managing store
operations better has generated interest. Woods said "retailers
want to know how merchandise sells" without directly reviewing
point-of-sale (POS) data.
A store could benefit from its managers having the ability to stand
in front of an end-isle product display stacked with merchandise
being able to see a graphical representation in red, yellow, and
green on a tablet PC of the best selling items. The products would
link to an RFID electronic product code that the tablet PC could
read.
Putting RFID tags on individual items isn't necessary. Cases could
be tagged instead, Woods said. "You'd have to fill in some missing
gaps, but it could be done."
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Let's tag all human beings in future!!
