RFID: Has Its Time Finally Come for Retail?

Executive Summary

• Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a 70-year-old technology that many retailers previously avoided due to concerns about cost and other factors.
• The global RFID market—for tags, interrogators, systems, services, networking and software—is estimated to hit approximately $13.9 billion this year and to grow at a 17.0% CAGR through 2018, according to IDTechEx.
• We think that trends such as accelerated shipping and omni-channel operations are finally encouraging retailers to overcome their concerns about RFID, and we have seen a significant amount of RFID activity in the retail industry over the past five years.
• RFID can also serve as an enabling technology for the Internet of Things (IoT), which bodes well for the technology, as an estimated 50 billion devices will be connected by 2020.