According to the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) quarterly worldwide WLAN tracker, the enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market grew 5.8 per cent between the second (Q2) and third quarter (Q3) of 2024 to reach $2.5 billion.
The sequential growth in Q3 follows a 12.4 per cent increase between Q1 and Q2 of 2024. This continued growth indicates that market’s supply and demand dynamics are stabilising after two years of volatility driven largely by the drawdown of backlogged products stemming from COVID-19-era global supply chain crisis. The enterprise WLAN market declined 1.7 per cent on a year-over-year (YoY) basis and is down 17.5 per cent through first three quarters of the year compared to elevated revenues of 2023.
As per the tracker, the latest Wi-Fi standards are steadily gaining traction in the enterprise WLAN market. Wi-Fi 6E, which enables Wi-Fi to utilise the 6 GHz band of unlicensed spectrum, accounted for 31.7 per cent of the dependent access point market’s revenues in Q3 2024. That is compared to making up 20.4 per cent of the segment’s revenues a year earlier. Wi-Fi 7 is also starting to be adopted, making up 4.9 per cent of the dependent access points (AP) segment’s revenues, while most remaining dependent APs continue to utilise Wi-Fi 6 technology.
IDC mentioned that in the United States, enterprise WLAN market declined 3.2 per cent YoY but increased 10.7 per cent sequentially from Q2 2024 to Q3 2024. In Western Europe, the market showed modest growth, increasing 0.2 per cent YoY and 4.2 per cent sequentially. In Central and Eastern Europe, the market rose 0.5 per cent YoY and 7.8 per cent sequentially. In the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan and China, the market declined 4.4 per cent YoY and fell 3.5 per cent sequentially. In the People’s Republic of China, the market declined 10.2 per cent YoY but rose 2.2 per cent sequentially.
Moreover, Cisco’s enterprise WLAN revenues declined 5.7 per cent YoY but rose 11 per cent sequentially to reach $1.0 billion, capturing 41.6 per cent of the market at the end of Q3. HPE Aruba Networking revenues grew 23.9 per cent YoY in Q3 2024 and rose 8.2 per cent, sequentially, resulting in a 15.1 per cent market share in Q3. Ubiquiti enterprise WLAN revenues increased 27.5 per cent YoY and 9.0 per cent sequentially, giving the company 8.3 per cent market share. Huawei enterprise WLAN revenues declined 1.8 per cent YoY in Q3 2024 and fell 20.5 per cent sequentially, giving the company market share of 7.2 per cent. Juniper Networks enterprise WLAN revenues increased 17.6 per cent YoY and rose 11.6 per cent sequentially, giving the company 5.3 per cent market share.
Commenting on the report, Brandon Butler, senior research manager, Enterprise Networks, IDC, said, “The WLAN industry continues to be a dynamic market, driven by a variety of trends. Firstly, the market continues its steady march back to normalisation of supply and demand dynamics by showing growth progress on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Meanwhile, the new standards continue to make up a larger share of WLAN investments, notably Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7, both of which extend Wi-Fi to use to the 6 GHz band.”
