Upstream of the Industrial Chain

The upstream of UHF RFID is chip manufacturers and antenna manufacturers.

The chip players for UHF RFID label products mainly include NXP, Impinj and Alien. Among them, NXP and Impinj occupy most of the UHF general-purpose chip market. These players have formed in the general-purpose chip field. Because of the advantages of scale, other UHF RFID label chip players are more customized development for special application fields, such as Invengo, Shanghai Quanray and so on.

UHF label antennas mainly use etching technology and antennas are also a link that focuses on production. The production of antennas requires the use of a large amount of chemicals. In the early years, there were many manufacturers producing label antennas. Strictly, the manufacturers of UHF label antennas are more concentrated, and the profit level of UHF antennas is more stable because of fewer players.

Mid-Stream of the Industrial Chain

The midstream of UHF RFID can be divided into two lines: label product line and reader product line.

The label product line covers Inlay production, blank label production, inkjet printing, and integrators who make RFID labels to end users.

UHF RFID labels are a link that pays great attention to production. To produce, they need production equipment. Therefore, label production equipment manufacturers also play an important role in the industry chain. The production equipment mainly includes bonding machines (the chip and the antenna is bound into Inlay), laminating machine (laminating Inlay into blank label), printer, and testing equipment in each link to ensure the yield of the product.

Downstream of the Industrial Chain
The downstream of the UHF RFID industry chain are various application end users and integrators. Although the application is the downstream from the technology industry chain, the application is the source of demand and the final payer for the closed loop of the entire industry chain. It can be seen that the downstream of the industrial chain is at a crucial position in the entire industrial chain.

The application of UHF RFID can be divided into general market and customized market. General purpose and customization here are a relative concept, because the UHF RFID market is dominated by toB and toG, and each project has different needs. From a certain point of view, UHF RFID is customized market.

The general-purpose market refers to the application of UHF RFID in some fields is very large, and the demand similarity of such applications is relatively high, and the degree of replication is relatively high. Typical applications are shoe and clothing brands, retail supermarkets, aviation, Logistics express and library labels. In this type of scenario, UHF RFID labels are used as consumables, so the consumption is very large, and the price sensitivity of the labels is relatively high.

Flow Chart of the Industry Chain