MADRID: Enterprise WLAN Market grew 9.4% year over year in Q2. Consumer worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market revenue increased 3.1% year over year in Q2, registering growth for the first time since 2014, according to the IDC.
The enterprise WLAN Market increased 9.4% year over year in the quarter, representing its strongest growth in more than two years. IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Wireless LAN Tracker revealed that the combined consumer and enterprise worldwide WLAN market segments grew 6.7% year over year in Q2, and increased 6.7% on a sequential basis.
The research firm attributed the growth to refresh cycles and the funding of digital transformation initiatives in several enterprises.
IDC network infrastructure senior research analyst Nolan Greene said: “Recognising the critical role that WLAN plays in IT’s mobility and digital initiatives, enterprises are committing to WLAN upgrades and refreshes.
“Even as global economic indicators are mixed, IDC believes that enterprises will continue to invest in robust WLAN infrastructure in order to compete effectively in the digital economy.”
IDC said the WLAN market is currently being dominated by the 802.11ac standard, which now accounts for 59.9% of dependent access point unit shipments and 77.4% of dependent access point revenues.
The 802.11ac standard adoption in the consumer market has been significantly slower, when compared to the enterprise segment.
In Q2, the 802.11ac standard accounted for only 22.6% of shipments and 51.3% of revenue in the consumer category.
Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (APeJ) saw the enterprise WLAN market increase 14.6% year-over-year in Q2. Vietnam and Korea were the growth leaders in APeJ.
Spain and Sweden were growth leaders in Western Europe, which saw a healthy 13.6% increase year over year in Q2 after a tepid first quarter, IDC said.
Central and Eastern Europe returned to growth in Q2, increasing 11% year over year, led by Croatia and Romania.
IDC said growing below the market rate in Q2 were North America, which recorded 7.3% year-over-year growth, Latin America which increased by 6.8% in the same period, and Middle East and Africa (MEA), increasing 1.5% over same period last year.
Cisco’s worldwide enterprise WLAN revenue increased 1.1% year over year in the quarter. The company’s global market share stood at 43.7% in Q2, down from the 45.2% registered in Q1, and down from 47.3% in the second quarter of 2015.
IDC believes that the Meraki cloud-managed WLAN portfolio remains one of the key growth drivers for Cisco.
Aruba-HPE (excluding its OEM business and from 2Q16 also the H3C business) fell 6.1% in 2Q16 on a year over year basis, mainly due to exclusion of the spun out H3C business in China. Aruba-HPE’s market share stands at 14.6% in Q2, down from 15.8% in 1Q16 and 17.1% in 2Q15.
Brocade-Ruckus, in its first full quarter reporting as a combined entity, increased 7.9% year over year in 2Q16 and accounted for 6.8% of the overall market.
Ubiquiti experienced strong growth in the quaretr, increasing 95.3% year over year and accounted for 4.2% of the overall market. Aerohive increased 34.1% year over year in Q2 and held 2.7% of the market.
