Gemini Traze will manufacture RFID tags

Gemini Traze RFID Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Rs 126 crore Gemini Communication, will soon begin manufacturing radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

The Chennai-based company which forayed into the RFID technology in October 2001, will commission an RFID tag manufacturing plant for an investment of about Rs 25 crore at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

"This will be a fully-automated plant where initially we will manufacture ultra high frequency (UHF) and high frequency (HF) passive RFID tags. We are installing the machinery bought from the German company Muehlbauer and we expect the first rollout to start by October this year," Pradhyumna T Venkat, business head, Gemini Traze told Business Standard on the sidelines of a national conference on RFID here.

Gemini Traze, which claims to be the first company in India to manufacture and market RFID-based readers and antennae, expects the cost of tags to fall by 50-60 per cent once the tags are manufactured locally.

"Earlier, we imported raw tags from companies like Texas Instruments, Impinj, Philips, ST Micro Electronics and packaged them. Once we have our own plant, we need to only buy chips from semiconductor companies and convert them into full-fledged tags," Venkata added.

The 15,000 square feet facility, being built for an investment of about Rs 25 crore, is expected to be commissioned in the next couple of months.

The initial capacity of the plant will be 50 million ultra high frequency (UHF) and high frequency (HF) RFID tags, with an option to expand this to 100 million tags over the next one year.

Presently, no Indian company manufactures RFID tags which are used in different areas like material tracking, stock management, fleet management, warehouse automation, quality control, packaging, security and, access control and hazardous material management.

"We will be the only company in India and the whole of South Asia to have our own RFID tag manufacturing plant," said Merlin S Leo, manager, operations, Gemini Traze. Gemini Traze, which had recorded a turnover of about Rs 10 crore, is presently growing over 100 per cent year-on-year.

"We are growing much faster than the industry, which is growing at a CAGR of about 70 per cent (IDC) and we expect our tag business alone to contribute about Rs 25-30 crore in the first year of our operations," he added.

The company has already prepared itself in a big way to reach out to the market and has targeted the booming retail sector for the RFID tags.

"We are already in talks with some prospective customers like Wxal Mart, Metro and Raliance Group. Besides, we are talking to Central Railway to introduce RFID-enabled ticketing system, " Venkata added.

He said that besides the domestic market, the company plans to export the tags to Asia Pacific, West Asia, European and North American markets. Gemini Traze already has an office in the US and will soon open an office in Sharjah to address West Asia.

"To reach out to Europe and rest of the Asia, we will enter into a partner network to sell our products," Venkata added.

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