This year's RFID/USN Korea 2007 is held with the catchphrase, Come See and Feel u-World with RFID/USN.
The exhibition will be held over three days from October 31st through Nov 2nd, 2007.
Under the auspices of the Ministry of Information and Communication, Republic of Korea, the RFID/USN Korea 2007 takes place under the joint supervision of the Korean Association of RFID/USN, National Information Society Agency, Electronics Telecommunications Research Institute, and Information and Communication University.
This RFID/USN exhibition and conference has come to greet its third year and secured its standing as an international exhibition and conference of the highest level in the world through last year's event.
In particular, the RFID/USN Korea is assessed to have gained outcomes which prepared an activation momentum for domestic RFID/USN-related market and constructed overseas cooperation system and channel plus the base enlargement to the public.
A total of 151 associated companies from home and abroad are scheduled to take part this year with 382 booths, up 65% from last year. A total of 56 RFID/USN experts from 9 countries will hold an international conference which lectures in six tracks and 18 session while at the same time diverse incidental events will be held including an export fair, a round table discussion between Korea, China and Japan, and an ISO/IEC JTC1/SC31 adhoc international standardization conference. The exhibition has been enlarged this year with an annual average of 65%. In 2005, there were 148 booths from 55 companies, but this year there are 382 booths from 151 companies.
There is expected to be over 35,000 visitors from approximately 30 countries this year, according to the estimate of the Korea Association of RFID/USN.
Diverse exhibition pavilion composition The persons concerned responsible for the exhibition pavilion at the Korea Association of RFID/USN said that diverse exhibition pavilion composition is a special feature of this year.
For instance, the sole UHF band mobile RFID experience service in the world will be offered. Moreover, RFID/USN hardware and software, application example-oriented B2B exhibition pavilion by industry is composed alongside of a B2C exhibition pavilion centering on Ubiquitous service such as governmental public project and mobile RFID, u-City and u-Health.
Besides, exhibition pavilions will be composed by theme by establishing a Chinese pavilion, Japanese pavilion and university pavilions from home and abroad.
The Korea Association of RFID/USN said that a large-sized international conference is held together in which a total of 18 sessions of 6 tracks is composed and a total of 56 of the best RFID/USN experts in the world will speak.
By establishing the hands-on track anew in which Oracle Korea, IBM Korea, ETRI Embedded Software Research Team take part, the Secretariat prepares a ground which can give a trial performance firsthand, together with participants.
In addition, by establishing an International Joint Track anew in common with the Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium from the US, the Secretariat allowed participants to take part in overseas conference as it is at home. As for diverse incidental events, overseas venture capitals from Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States, Japan and China participate in for the first time this year to hold a 1 to 1 investment fair between exhibition participating companies by teaming up with KOTRA.
The ISO/IEC JTC1/SC31 ad-hoc international standardization conference for the purpose of mobile RFID international standardization takes place over two days on October 30 and 31 at the Renaissance Hotel Seoul in common with ETRI.
As to the RFID/USN 2007's expectation effect, Chairman Kim Shin-bae, the Korea Association of RFID/USN explained: "As the largest and best level's RFID/USN special exhibition in the world, the RFID/USN 2007 will contribute to domestic market activation facilitation greatly by providing supplier and user with business opportunity."
By allowing the general public to experience RFID/USN firsthand, related companies are expected to dig out potential demand and forge a new market, he said.
Especially, the RFID/USN 2007 will facilitate competitive technology development through information exchange such as RFID/USN-related latest technology at home and abroad, standards, and application examples, Kim added.
RFID/USN-related market's activation momentum
As regarding domestic RFID/USN market at present, domestic RFID market is forecast to increase from 54.9 billion won (US$60.13 million) in 2003 through 236.8 billion won (US$260 million) in 2006 to 471 billion won (US$515 million) in 2007, according to the statistics of the Korea Association of RFID/USN.
USN market also is forecast to reach to 183 billion won (US$20 million) in 2007 from 90.1 billion won (US$ 99 million) in 2006 as it has been growing with an annual 82% since 2005.
RFID/USN market outlook in the years to come is forecast to reach approximately 2.36 trillion won (US$2.6 billion) in 2010 and 4.85 trillion won (US$5.3 billion) in the upcoming 2012 by passing the 1 trillion won (US$1.1 billion) mark in 2008.
As for domestic RFID/USN company number, RFID/USN companies have increased 5.7 times over the latest three years since 2004.
Chief company movement by field is as follows:
In the case of RFID chips, foreign companies have dominated the domestic market to date. However, ETRI, Samsung Electronics and related SMEs are preparing a market launch while developing RFID chips.
In the field of tags, domestic companies which possess technology power across the entire process from product design through its manufacturing, are no more than a small number. Lately, Samsung Techwin, RF Link, and RF Camp rushed into mass production by constructing facilities to mass produce 900 MHz band tags.
In the case of RFID readers, competition to secure the market between overseas companies such as Motorola and domestic companies like Ceyon Technology, D&S Technology is cutthroat.
Software development companies such as Korea Computer drive forward their project with interest in application development.
In the case of SI companies, Samsung SDS, LG CNS, SK C&C, and CJ Systems are unfolding briskly their activities to preoccupy the RFID market through RFID organization's enlargement, collaboration with an educational-industrial-laboratorial complex, and capacity concentration within group affiliates.
The government is propelling RFID/USN construction by investing 43 billion won (US$47 million) across a total of 44 fields from 2004 in the interests of boosting awareness degree for the people and creating initial market.
Such government-initiative RFID/USN construction will contribute to boosting RFID/USN equipment localization rate, RFID tag price decline, and RFID/USN related turnover increase.
The private field also appeared to have introduced a total of 118 fields including financial security, medical care, manufacturing, wholesale and retail sale, and RFID/USN introduction is forecast to increase greatly according to worldwide trends in the years to come.
