Enterprise WLAN market continues moderate growth in 1Q 2019

The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments increased 6.9 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2019 (1Q19), finishing at USD 2.4 billion. According to IDC, the enterprise segment grew 7.1 percent year-over-year in 1Q19 to reach USD 1.4 billion while consumer WLAN market revenue increased 6.6 percent, finishing at USD 1.0 billion. The market is being driven by enterprises continuing to upgrade their wireless infrastructure as users, and devices relying on an increasing array of bandwidth-heavy applications.

The enterprise WLAN is now dominated by the 802.11ac standard, which makes up 86.4 percent of dependent access point (AP) shipments and 93.1 percent of enterprise WLAN-dependent AP revenues. The next iteration of the standard, 802.11ax, also known as Wi-Fi 6, will increase in the market throughout the rest of 2019 and into 2020. In the consumer WLAN market, the 802.11ac standard accounted for 58.0 percent of shipments and 79.2 percent of revenue in 1Q19.

From a geographic perspective, the enterprise WLAN market saw its strongest 1Q19 growth in the Middle-East and Africa region, which rose 23.8 percent. Notable growth in the region came from the United Arab Emirates increasing 25.7 percent year-over-year and Saudi Arabia growing 38.1 percent. The Western European region grew 10.8 percent, with the Netherlands up 20.4 percent, and Norway growing 44.4 percent. Central and Eastern Europe grew 1.6 percent with the Czech Republic up 16.8 percent but Russia, the region’s largest market, declining 15.8 percent. The Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) grew 2.4 percent with China increasing 9.0 percent year-over-year. Japan dropped 14.3 percent in 1Q19. The United States market grew 11.8 percent while Canada was off 0.4 percent.

Cisco saw its worldwide enterprise WLAN revenue increase 11.6 percent year-over-year in 1Q19. Aruba-HPE revenues rose 20.3 percent year-over-year in 1Q19. Ubiquiti revenue increased 17.8 percent year-over-year in 1Q19, accounting for 7.3 percent of the market. ARRIS/Ruckus revenue fell 27.6 percent year-over-year in 1Q19. ARRIS market share stands at 5.2 percent. Huawei revenues grew 9.3 percent year-over-year in 1Q19, giving the company 4.2 percent of the global market.