According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, enterprise class Wireless LAN (WLAN) revenue increased by 11% on year-over-year basis. The adoption of the latest technology, WiFi 7, continued its ascent, reaching 12% of units shipped worldwide.
“This is the first quarter that all major vendors sold enterprise class WiFi 7,” says Siân Morgan, research director at Dell’Oro Group. “Some manufacturers have been dealing with large inventories of WiFi 6E, and have been prioritizing shipments of the older technology, which still has strong adoption. Now we’re coming to the end of WiFi 6E growth phase, the market will shift over to WiFi 7 in larger numbers.
“Vendors are also putting development efforts into AI models to enhance WLAN operations,” adds Morgan. “AI and Machine Learning are being used to perform cross-domain trouble shooting, to support front line support staff, and to create custom, dynamic dashboards. We expect these developments to pay off by growing recurring software revenues for WLAN vendors.”
Additional highlights from the 1Q 2025 Wireless LAN Quarterly Report include:
- WLAN revenues from CommScope, Ubiquiti and Extreme grew faster than any other vendor.
- Shipments to North America surged, with other regions lagging behind.
- The Average Selling Price of WiFi 7 remained lower than WiFi 6E, highlighting the fact that the early WiFi 7 market has been dominaged by lower-cost vendors.
- The US Department of Justice’s suit aiming to block HPE’s intended acquisition of Juniper is set to begin 9 July 2025, with HPE stating it is still committed to the deal.