IDC: Global Enterprise WLAN Market Shows Moderate Decline in First Quarter of 2020

According to the results of IDC's global quarterly WLAN market tracking report, the overall share of global consumer and enterprise-level wireless LAN (WLAN) in the first quarter of 2020 increased by 2.3% year-on-year, among which enterprise-level WLAN decreased by 2.2% year-on-year, with revenue of US$1.3 billion.

The impact of the global coronavirus pandemic on the enterprise WLAN market began to emerge in the first quarter of 2020. The outbreak first emerged in China in the early part of the first quarter, then spread to Europe and North America by the end of the quarter, and the subsequent economic stagnation created adverse factors for the enterprise WLAN market.

The new Wi-Fi 6 standard, also known as 802.11ax, is a driving force in the enterprise WLAN market. Across the enterprise market, dependent access points (APs) supporting Wi-Fi 6 accounted for 11.8% of shipments and 21.8% of revenue. The previous generation 802.11ac standard still accounts for the majority of shipments (80.9%) and revenue (76.2%). Meanwhile, the consumer WLAN market grew 5.5% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2020. In the consumer market, 802.11ac products accounted for 62.5% of total shipments and 79.4% of total revenue. It is not surprising that APs supporting the 802.11n standard still account for 36.9% of shipments and 17.6% of revenue, given the price sensitivity of many emerging markets.

"Wireless connectivity remains an important technology for enterprise organizations around the world as more users and devices rely on mobile devices to connect to bandwidth-intensive applications," said Brandon Butler, senior research analyst, Network Infrastructure at IDC. "The WLAN market has not been immune to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has swept the world over the past few months. Market results for the first quarter of 2020 show the early effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown policies, which will continue to impact the market in the second quarter."

From a regional perspective, the WLAN market in the Middle East and Africa grew strongly, up 8.4% year-on-year in the first quarter. The United Arab Emirates grew 12.0%, and Turkey grew 15.7%. The North American market also performed well in the quarter: the United States grew 6.9%, and the Canadian enterprise WLAN market grew 10.6%.

The Chinese market fell sharply by 23.0% in the quarter. The entire Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan and China) fell by 10.6%, India fell by 13.6%, Australia fell by 15.6%, and Japan fell by 2.8%.

The European market had mixed performance, with the Russian enterprise WLAN market growing 6.0%, Poland growing 6.6%, and Central and Eastern Europe growing 1.8% year-on-year. Western Europe declined 6.2%, with the UK down 3.9%, Germany down 7.7%, and France down 9.8%.

"The enterprise WLAN market has seen mixed performance across different regions, depending on the spread of the coronavirus," said Petr Jirovsky, research director for IDC's Worldwide Network Trackers. "The coronavirus pandemic initially hit Asian countries, causing many economies to slow down investments in WLAN technology. Given that the outbreak has now spread to other parts of the world, IDC predicts that the impact of the outbreak on the enterprise WLAN market will continue into the second quarter of this year."

Enterprise WLAN vendors performed as follows:

• Cisco's enterprise WLAN revenue fell 6.7% year over year to $611 million in the first quarter of 2020. Cisco remains the market share leader with 45.7% in the quarter, up from 44.6% for all of 2019.
• HPE-Aruba's revenue grew 14.2% year over year in the quarter, and its market share increased from 13.8% in full-year 2019 to 14.4% in the first quarter of 2020.
• Ubiquiti's enterprise WLAN revenue grew 24.8% year over year, with a market share of 9.5%, up from 7.0% for the full year 2019.
• CommScope (formerly ARRIS/Ruckus) saw revenue decline 4.7% year over year, giving it a 5.2% market share.
• Huawei's revenue fell 15.0% year-on-year, with a market share of 3.8%.