2005 Chinese RFID Market Size to exceed 1.5 Billion Yuan

(Business News & Technology News, 9 Jul 2005)

Wal-Mart has emphasized that the top 100 suppliers should utilize RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology in their deliveries, as there is a potential market for RFID application in supply chain management. According to the Consumer Electronics Focus Report on Chinese RFID Market Development 2005 by Analysys International, RFID has been a hot topic in the IT market over the last two years, but RFID had actually started developing in the 1980’s. In the Chinese market, the low and high frequency application of RFID is relatively mature. In 2004, the Chinese market value exceeded RMB 1.2 billion, in which the tag market was RMB 0.933 billion. Analysys International believes that by 2005, the Chinese RFID market size will reach RMB 1.558 billion, an increase of about 30% from 2004.

Analysys International IT Research Manager Charles Jiang said, “From the industrial RFID application point of view, the government, transportation, and manufacturing (parts of the process) are all recent key industries. Logistics and end-to-end supply chain in the manufacturing industry will become key fields in 2-3 years, while a sizable break-through for RFID applications for retail will not be realized within the next five years because of the following two reasons. First, IT supply chain management is too weak and second, adding RFID tags to products will result in lower profit margins, especially for inexpensive items.”