In September 2016, Alibaba announced a collaboration with GS1 to adopt GS1 standards for its product information management system, as well as a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) for product identification. ABI Research believes this benefits Alibaba’s Aliyun business in big data analytics, in addition to the RFID industry through the adoption of source tagging and food traceability.
RFID Will Take Off As Costs Continue to Decline
Despite the fact that 1D and 2D barcodes are still the dominant technologies in product identification, ABI Research believes RFID is set to benefit the most under this Alibaba announcement. Back in 2014, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released a joint statement (Notice No. 74 (2014)) for development projects pertaining to the IoT, and articulated its support for the development of a UHF reader IC, for the frequency range of 840 MHz to 960 MHz, data rate of 640 kbps, and a reading speed of 150 tags per second. Currently, China is the world’s largest manufacturer of RFID tags and one of its largest consumers. There are several ongoing passive RFID projects taking place in China, mainly found in source tagging, food management and traceability, anti-counterfeiting and quality control, cold chain tracking, as well as asset and warehouse management.
Source: Big Data and RFID Industry to Benefit from Alibaba Group’s GS1 Adoption | ABI Research