ABI Research sees continuing growth in RFID markets worldwide as it forecasts a total market size of about $4.6 billion by the end of 2010 for RFID systems including hardware, software and services.

By the end of 2011, ABI Research expects global RFID system markets to reach nearly $5.3 billion, a year-over-year growth in excess of 16%. RFID systems software revenue will outpace that from services, transponders and readers. When automobile immobilization is included the total market size is approximately $6.2 billion, representing 13% growth next year.

ABI credits a majority of this growth to retail deployments, item-level apparel tracking due to Walmart jeans and basics tagging at JCPenney, Marks & Spencer and American Apparel, among others. Asset tracking and management applications will continue to gain momentum in environments including health care, manufacturing, transportation and logistics.

The Middle East, Latin America, South Africa and others, which currently comprise of 7% of the overall RFID market, is expected to adopt RFID solutions due to increased focus on using RFID in the Middle East in the oil and gas space and for construction; in Latin America for animal ID, food safety, and retail; and in South Africa for RTI, among others.

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