China now biggest RFID market

For the first time, China has become the world’s largest market for RFID by value, says a new report out from specialist industry researchers IDTechEx. In 2007, the spend on RFID in East Asia will be US$2.7 billion of $4.96 billion spent globally. And the majority of this – $1.9 billion – is just in China because of a peak in delivery of contactless national identification cards prior to the 2008 Olympics.

About $1.65 billion is being spent on 300 million of these cards plus their associated systems being delivered in 2007 out of a project commitment of $6 billion, the largest of any RFID project in the world. Add to this $0.25 billion in other RFID tags and their systems, most of this related to transport, cash replacement and secure access cards, and the resulting $1.9 billion is 38 percent by value of the $4.96 billion global market for RFID cards and systems in 2007.

IDTechEx also notes that as deliveries of the national ID card saturate, China will sink below the US and probably Japan in value of its RFID market. However, over the next 10 years, the drop off will be more than compensated by buoyant RFID sectors including animal tagging, transport, cash replacement cards, secure access, manufacturing, military and supply chain applications.