3. Why the market is struggling to take off today

The production capacities in operation today serve markets such as transport, ticketing, secure documents, bookshops, textiles, and so on. They are used in established, long-term markets where the RFID function represents added value. The volumes demanded by these applications correspond to the production capacities and costs of the machines used.

These developed applications are maintaining reasonable growth, ensuring that the sector grows in volume at over 10-15% a year. These applications are already demanding access to RFID functionality at a better price. Competition is starting to get tough.

At the same time, new applications are emerging. Luggage tracking in the air transport industry, with 1.5 billion pieces of luggage a year, is a good example. And what about the retail sector, which could absorb several hundred billion labels a...