IDC: Global Enterprise WLAN Market Recovered in the Third Quarter with a Growth of 7.4%

According to IDC's Global WLAN Quarterly Tracking Report, the global consumer and enterprise WLAN market grew 12.0% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2020, of which the enterprise segment grew 7.4% year-on-year with revenue of US$1.7 billion.

In the enterprise WLAN market, results were mixed across regions around the world, with market performance still impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a rebound in the third quarter after a 9.5% year-over-year decline in the second quarter of this year.

The Wi-Fi 6 standard, also known as 802.11ax, is a key driver in the enterprise WLAN market. Across the enterprise market, Wi-Fi 6-enabled dependent access points (APs) accounted for 39.9% of revenue, up from 28.9% in the second quarter of 2020, indicating that the enterprise market continues to adopt the latest WLAN standard in large numbers. Wi-Fi 6-enabled devices accounted for 26.7% of shipments, up from 16.8% in the previous quarter. The Wi-Fi 5 standard, also known as 802.11ac, still accounts for a large portion of dependent access point shipments and revenue, with shares of 67.0% and 58.6%, respectively. Overall shipments in the enterprise WLAN market grew 10.1% year-over-year.

Meanwhile, the consumer WLAN market grew 15.3% year-over-year in the quarter, with 802.11ac products accounting for 64.7% of shipments and 74.8% of revenue. 802.11ax accounted for 4.7% of shipments and 12.3% of revenue, indicating that Wi-Fi 6 adoption in the consumer market has been slower than in the enterprise market. WLAN devices supporting the previous generation 802.11n standard still accounted for 30.5% of shipments and 12.8% of revenue.

"Enterprises began to reinvest in key WLAN technologies in the third quarter of 2020," said Brandon Butler, senior research analyst for Network Infrastructure at IDC. "As the global coronavirus pandemic continues to impact the global economy, enterprises are beginning to shift from a business continuity phase to a targeted investment approach in technologies that support business needs. Wireless connectivity will remain a key technology for enterprises, which want to support a variety of bandwidth-intensive applications such as video traffic on their networks. The results in the third quarter of 2020 are a positive sign for the enterprise WLAN market in 2020 and beyond."

From a geographic perspective, North America had strong growth, with the U.S. up 13.7% and Canada up 13.5%. Asia Pacific was a mixed bag: China grew 8.5%, while Japan grew 98.8%. Other regional markets in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan and China) declined year-over-year, with India down 25.7% and South Korea down 14.4%.

The situation in Europe and the Middle East was also different. The Middle East and Africa region grew 9.3% year-on-year, with Turkey growing 17.4%. Central and Eastern Europe grew 3.9%, with Russia growing 12.1% and Ukraine growing 34.5%. In Western Europe, the enterprise market as a whole fell 8.2%, with the UK falling 19.5% and France falling 8.7%. Latin America fell 13.1% year-on-year, with Mexico falling 9.9% and Colombia falling 13.6%.

Petr Jirovsky, research director of IDC's Global Enterprise Network Trackers, pointed out: "The COVID-19 pandemic continues to put economic pressure on various parts of the world, and under this circumstance, the growth of the enterprise WLAN market in various regions has also varied. In the consumer market, consumers want to upgrade their Wi-Fi devices to support the needs of working and studying at home, so the consumer WLAN market will continue to maintain steady growth in 2020."

Enterprise WLAN Vendor Highlights

Cisco's enterprise WLAN revenue increased 4.9% year over year to $750 million in the third quarter of 2020, and it remained the market share leader with 43.1% market share, down from 44.3% in the second quarter.

• HPE-Aruba's revenue for the quarter decreased 4.5% year over year to $218 million, with a market share of 12.5%.
• Ubiquiti's enterprise WLAN revenue grew 30.1% year over year, with a market share of 8.6%, up from 7.1% in the previous quarter.
• Huawei's revenue increased 27.4% year-on-year, and its market share increased to 6.4% from 6.1% in the second quarter.
• CommScope (formerly ARRIS/Ruckus) saw revenue decrease 0.4% year over year and market share of 4.8%.