The enterprise wireless local area network (WLAN) market segment continued to grow at a faster pace than most others in a WLAN market that overall has experienced a slowing pace of growth over the last several quarters, according to a new report from IDC. Though the growth rate in the global enterprise WLAN market segment has been slowing, the segment did grow a “healthy” 10.3 percent year over year in 1Q 2014, according to the latest update from the IDC Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker.
WLAN Growth Rate
The consumer WLAN market segment also showed growth in 1Q, rising 3.8 percent year over year. The ongoing transition to the newer IEEE 802.11ac WLAN standard from the older 802.11n standard and “a solid performance in emerging markets” fueled the gain, IDC says.
“WLAN infrastructure continues to be a bright spot in the networking market, with mobility and cloud driving investments and refresh cycles across geographies and verticals,” Rohit Mehra, IDC vice president, Network Infrastructure, was quoted in a press release.
“While a stabilizing growth rate suggests the market maturing, new vertical-specific use cases and the ramping adoption of the emerging 802.11ac standard will fuel sustained growth in the enterprise WLAN market for the foreseeable future.”
Year-over-year growth in North America, at 7.7 percent, was slower than the global average, however.
Vendor Performance
IDC’s latest market research also updates statistics on key enterprise WLAN vendors.
Commenting on conditions in the WLAN market in 1Q, IDC Worldwide Networking Trackers Research Manager Petr Jirovsky stated, “Although some of the leading vendors experienced flattening revenues in the first quarter, growth in the worldwide enterprise WLAN market will remain strong as technological evolutions drive network upgrades as well as greenfield deployments.”
According to IDC:
- Cisco’s 1Q14 worldwide enterprise WLAN revenue was flat year over year and declined 11.6% quarter over quarter due to typical seasonality. Cisco was particularly impacted by relative weakness in the Service Provider vertical in the Asia/Pacific region, which declined -16.8% year over year. Cisco’s worldwide market share stands at 47.9% in 1Q14, down from 48.4% in 4Q13 and 52.8% in 1Q13.
- Aruba (excluding its OEM business) had a very strong quarter in 1Q14 and revenue increased 25.4% year over year and 8.4% sequentially on strength across its product portfolio, including the 802.11ac and Aruba Instant access points. Aruba’s market share increased to 11.9% of the enterprise WLAN market, up from 9.8% in 4Q13 and 10.5% in 1Q13.
- Ruckus also handily outperformed the overall enterprise WLAN market after growing 36.4% year over year and 4.1% quarter over quarter in 1Q14. Ruckus now accounts for 6.7% of the overall market, up from 5.4% in 1Q13.
- HP’s 1Q14 revenue underperformed the overall market and decreased 10.5% year over year and slipped below $50 million for the quarter. As a result, HP’s market share dropped to 4.4% of the market from 5.4% last quarter.
