China's RF Semiconductors Will Increase to US$1.4 Billion in 2010

China's radio frequency identification (RFID) semiconductor market will grow by leaps and bounds in the next few years, and sales will more than double in 2009-2014. According to iSuppli's analysis, it is expected that China's RFID market will grow to US$1.4 billion in 2010, a 22% increase from the US$1.1 billion in 2009. However, this compares with the next few years. By 2014, the RFID market will reach US$2.4 billion, which is twice the amount in 2009.

RFID uses radio waves to transmit data between radar and electronic tags on objects for easy identification and tracking. Many people believe that RFID will replace the bar code system. Compared with the latter, it has many advantages in logistics applications. For example, it does not require contact and line of sight to transmit identification or tracking information.

The rise of China's RFID market is the result of growing demand in areas such as transportation, warehouses, logistics, electronic payments, medical equipment tracking, food safety systems, and asset management. At the same time, the technology integration in the RFID market continues to increase. Many companies are beginning to study technological innovations and are ready to expand the range of applications for RFID devices, including mobile payments.

The cost of RFID still hampers its acceptance on a large scale, although the technical bar code has many advantages over it. However, due to the rapid development of integrated circuit manufacturing technology, the cost of RFID chips has continued to decline, and the price of many high-frequency RFID cards in China has now dropped to about one yuan. The price of labeled products has become cheaper and is expected to decline further. iSuppli Corporation predicts that as the technology matures, the production of related products will also become more mature, which will promote RFID devices to achieve economies of scale.