VDC Smart Fabrics Research

Smart Fabric and Interactive Textile (SFIT): OEM and End-User Requirements, Preferences, and Solutions Analysis is VDC's second publication assessing the global SFIT market.

Report Highlights
The global market for electrically enabled SFIT technologies reached $304.0 million in 2005, and is expected to grow to $642.1 million by 2008, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.3%.

According to OEMs, commercial prices were the largest inhibitors of SFIT growth. Some other barriers included: high costs of materials, slow funding/development, and poor OEM education and demand. Other comments included: the need to produce more effective washable form factors, and the need to educate end users of SFIT products and their functions.

At present the SFIT marketplace for electrically enabled applications only exhibits true competition in a few isolated instances where technical maturity has somewhat evolved.

Today the majority of the market rests in the automotive industry, however the electronics communication and entertainment devices segments hold the most competition. Reasons why this type of involvement has not spread to other industries include:
- Limited competition spread throughout different end-user markets.
- Required high levels of cooperation among SFIT supplier stakeholders to facilitate portfolios encompassing different industries and technologies.