Fuelled by the continued adoption of the latest Wi-Fi standards and an easing of supply chain constraints, the enterprise segment of the worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market increased revenues 34,3% YoY in the third quarter of 2022 (3Q22) to $2,6-billion, according to results published in the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wireless LAN Tracker.
The 34,3% annualised growth in 3Q22 builds on the market’s 20,4% YoY growth in the second quarter of 2022. Through the first three quarters of 2022, the enterprise WLAN market is up 24,5% compared to 2021.
A new Wi-Fi standard was added to the WLAN Tracker in 3Q22: Wi-Fi 6E, an iterative advancement of the Wi-Fi 6 standard. Wi-Fi 6E expands Wi-Fi’s use to the 6 GHz band of spectrum, whereas previous Wi-Fi standards used the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. In 3Q22, Wi-Fi 6E made up 4,8% of the market revenues for dependent access points (AP), marking the beginning of enterprise adoption of the standard. Wi-Fi 6 made up the vast balance (79,7%) of dependent AP revenues.
The consumer segment of the WLAN market increased 2,4% YoY in 3Q22, with the quarter’s unit shipments declining 13,2% compared to the third quarter of 2021. Adoption of Wi-Fi 6 continues in the consumer segment of the WLAN market as well. In 3Q22, Wi-Fi 6 made up 38,1% of the market’s revenues.
“A variety of factors continue to drive growth in the enterprise WLAN market. Perhaps most importantly, the global shortage of various infrastructure components and log-jammed supply chains are showing signs of easing, allowing networking vendors to convert record-large backlogs into revenue and giving enterprise customers access to the latest Wi-Fi technology,” says Brandon Butler, research manager, Enterprise Networks, IDC. “Meanwhile, new Wi-Fi standards are encouraging enterprise adoption of WLAN technology, notably the emergence of Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz spectrum via Wi-Fi 6E.”
The enterprise WLAN market had generally strong results across the globe. In the US, the market increased 38,6% annually, while in Canada the market rose 27,9% year over year; in Latin America the market grew 3,5% from a year earlier. In Western Europe, the market increased 59,1%, but in Central and Eastern Europe, the market declined 12%. In the Middle East & Africa, the market rose 39,9%. In the Asia/Pacific region, excluding Japan and China, the market rose 40,5% while the China (PRC) market increased 16,9% YoY, and in Japan the market rose 15,9%.
3Q22 Company Highlights
Cisco’s enterprise WLAN revenues increased 29,8% in 3Q22 to $1-billion and increased 32,4% on a sequential basis from 2Q22 to 3Q22. The company’s market share stood at 39,7% in 3Q22, compared to a market share of 37,7% in 2Q22.
HPE-Aruba revenues rose 76,6% year over year in 3Q22 and rose 29% sequentially, giving the company market share of 15,3%, up from 14,9% in the previous quarter.
Ubiquiti enterprise WLAN revenues increased 19,2% year over year in 3Q22 and rose 14% sequentially, giving the company 7,2% market share in the quarter, down from 7,9% in 2Q22.
Huawei enterprise WLAN revenues rose 6,7% year over year in 3Q22 and declined 9,3% from 2Q22 to 3Q22, giving the company 6,1% market share, down from 8,5% in 2Q22.
H3C revenues increased 0,7% in 3Q22, and increased 17,7% sequentially, giving the company market share of 4,3%, down slightly from the 4,6% share in 2Q22.
