Top 20 automatic data capture suppliers

Reality bites, and in 2009, the automatic data capture business was bit hard. The total market for industrial automatic data capture (ADC) solutions came in at roughly $15.2 billion in 2009, according to Massachusetts-based VDC Research Group, down about 15.5% from the more than $18 billion spent on industrial ADC in 2008.

But it was a tale of two years, and a modest recovery may already be underway, buoyed by investments in RFID technology and 2D imaging solutions, according to Drew Nathanson, VDC’s director of research operations. The emphasis is on the word “modest.” “There is still a lot of uncertainty about the economic recovery and that impacts this market,” says Nathanson.

The ADC market includes handheld and stationary bar code scanning and imaging devices, bar code printers, consumables like bar code labels and RFID tags, RFID solutions for the supply chain, and ruggedized mobile computing solutions for the factory and warehouse.

Related article: Data capture and mobile computing

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