The enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market grew 10,6% in the first quarter of 2025 (1Q25) compared to 1Q24 to reach $2,3-billion as the market’s growth momentum continued from the previous quarter, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker.
Annualised growth in the first quarter of 2025 builds on growth momentum in 2024, when market revenues increased in each sequential quarter of 2024 – including rising 4,8% between the third and fourth quarters of 2024 and growing 5,8% between the second and third quarters of 2024.
The market’s supply and demand dynamics are stabilising after two years of volatility driven largely by the drawdown of backlogged product orders stemming from the Covid-19-era global supply chain crisis.
Meanwhile, the latest Wi-Fi standards are driving growth in the enterprise WLAN market. Wi-Fi 6E, which enables Wi-Fi to utilise the 6GHz band of unlicensed spectrum, accounted for 31,9% of dependent access point market segment revenues in 1Q25, compared to making up 27,7% of the segment’s revenues a year earlier. Wi-Fi 7 adoption increased in the first quarter too, making up 11,8% of the dependent AP segment’s revenues in 1Q25, growing from 10,2% of dependent AP revenues in 4Q24.
From a geographical perspective, in the Americas the enterprise WLAN market increased 15,2% YoY in 1Q25, driven by strong growth of 21% in the US. In the Europe, Middle East & Africa region, the market grew 11% YoY; while in the Asia Pacific region, revenues grew 1% YoY as market revenues in the People’s Republic of China declined 4,2% YoY.
“The Enterprise WLAN market continues to reset after a volatile period of annualised growth rates driven by complex supply chain disruptions and inventory management issues impacting both vendors and end users,” says Brandon Butler, senior research manager, Enterprise Networks at IDC. “The fundamentals of the enterprise WLAN market remain strong, however, with exciting innovations such as 6GHz Wi-Fi and AI-powered management capabilities continuing to power the next-generation of wireless connectivity.”
Below are results from notable enterprise WLAN vendors:
- Cisco’s enterprise WLAN revenues rose 4,6% YoY in 1Q25 to reach $904,5-million, giving the company market share of 39,5%.
- HPE Aruba Networking revenues grew 10,7% YoY in 1Q25 to reach $363,9-million, giving the company market share of 15,9%.
- Ubiquiti enterprise WLAN revenues increased 50,9% YoY in 1Q25 to reach $267,4-million, giving the company market share of 11,7%.
- Huawei enterprise WLAN revenues declined 10,7% YoY in 1Q25 to total $124,1-million, giving the company market share of 5,4%.
- Juniper Networks’ enterprise WLAN revenues increased 21,9% YoY in 1Q25 to total $120,9-million, giving the company market share of 5,3%.