Enterprise WLAN Market Grows 5.8 Percent from Second to Third Quarter of 2024: IDC

• 16 Dec 2024
• TM Team
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According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker, the enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market grew 5.8 percent between the second and third quarters of 2024 to reach $2.5 billion.

The sequential growth in the third quarter follows a 12.4 percent increase between the first and second quarters of 2024. This continued growth indicates that the market's supply and demand dynamics are stabilizing after two years of volatility driven largely by the drawdown of backlogged products stemming from the COVID-19-era global supply chain crisis.

The enterprise WLAN market declined 1.7 percent on a year-over-year (YoY) basis and is down 17.5 percent through the first three quarters of the year compared to the elevated revenues of 2023.

The latest Wi-Fi standards are steadily gaining traction in the enterprise WLAN market. Wi-Fi 6E, which enables Wi-Fi to use the 6 GHz band of unlicensed spectrum, accounted for 31.7 percent of the dependent access point market's revenues in the third quarter (Q3 2024). That's compared to making up 20.4 percent of the segment's revenues a year earlier. Wi-Fi 7 is also starting to be adopted, making up 4.9 percent of the dependent AP segment's revenues, while most remaining dependent APs continue to use Wi-Fi 6 technology.

"The WLAN industry continues to be a dynamic market, driven by a variety of trends. Firstly, the market continues its steady march back to normalization of supply and demand dynamics by showing growth progress on a quarter-over-quarter basis," said Brandon Butler, Senior Research Manager, Enterprise Networks, IDC. "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."

In the United States the enterprise WLAN market declined 3.2 percent YoY, but increased 10.7 percent sequentially from Q2 2024 to Q3 2024. In Western Europe, the market showed modest growth, increasing 0.2 percent YoY and 4.2 percent sequentially. In Central and Eastern Europe, the market rose 0.5 percent YoY and 7.8 percent sequentially. In the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan and China, the market declined 4.4 percent YoY and fell 3.5 percent sequentially. In the People's Republic of China, the market declined 10.2 percent YoY, but rose 2.2 percent sequentially.

Cisco's enterprise WLAN revenues declined 5.7 percent YoY, but rose 11 percent sequentially to reach $1.0 billion, capturing 41.6 percent of the market at the end of the third quarter.

HPE Aruba Networking revenues grew 23.9 percent YoY in 3Q24 and rose 8.2 percent, sequentially, resulting in a 15.1 percent market share in the quarter.

Ubiquiti enterprise WLAN revenues increased 27.5 percent YoY and 9 percent sequentially, giving the company 8.3 percent market share.

Huawei enterprise WLAN revenues declined 1.8 percent YoY in Q3 2024 and fell 20.5 percent sequentially, giving the company market share of 7.2 percent.

Juniper Networks enterprise WLAN revenues increased 17.6 percent YoY and rose 11.6 percent sequentially, giving the company 5.3 percent market share.