Radio Frequency Identification – RFID – is a technology of many uses. In one form or another, it is found in fields as varied as supply chain logistics, aerospace and defense, automotive, border security, life sciences and pharmaceuticals, retail and transportation. Although many reports published by ABI Research and other analysts address specific vertical markets and RFID applications, their diversity has often made it difficult for investors, governments, integration service providers, end-users, developers and others to grasp the bigger picture and to understand the landscape of this rapidly growing collection of markets. That gap has now been filled by a new ABI Research study, “RFID Annual Market Overview: Vertical Market and Application Market Overview for Tags, Readers, Software and Services.” It provides a high level, but still detailed examination of RFID technologies, applications and addressable vertical markets by region, and is intended to give readers a general outline of the broad RFID market. According to Erik Michielsen, director, RFID and Ubiquitous Network Research, “RFID shows nuances across technologies, but also identifies the relevant applications for them and how vertical markets are building use-cases for them within application and business process environments.” The research also highlights the differences between low growth RFID applications, such as access control, animal tracking and vehicle immobilization, and high growth applications, such as personal identification documents, contactless point-of-sale and item-level RFID tracking. “The study includes a number of vendor profiles,” adds Michielsen, “and it is worth pointing out that they are not intended to be any kind of ‘Top 30’ list; rather, they have been chosen to reflect the wide range of specializations, company sizes and global locations that characterize the massive RFID ecosystem.”