CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—According to a report from Dr. Peter Harrop of IDTechEx, most of the RFID business is booming (see figure). Andrew Price, RFID manager at IATA, the airline trade association, enthuses, "In the next few years, the air industry will be tagging an even-higher proportion of its two billion bags yearly and it will use RFID in other new applications as well."

This is a global phenomenon, not least in government applications. Steve Georgevitch, Total Asset Visibility program manager of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, comments, "The aerospace and defense industries are on a rapid RFID adoption path with substantial benefits anticipated in the next several years."

There are also new markets opening up beyond transport. Dr. Chang-Hun Lee of the National Information Society Agency, Korea, states, "Ubiquitous Sensor Networks will be a huge RFID market in a few years."

The largest bookseller in The Netherlands, BGN, is ordering several million tags yearly for its new scheme and its payback is so compelling that others will rapidly follow.

For further information, go to the IDTechEx website at www.idtechex.com