The combined consumer and enterprise wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments rose 1.9% year over year in the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18) with worldwide revenues of $2.5 billion, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker.
"The enterprise WLAN market continues to see moderate, steady growth, underscoring the importance of wireless networking for businesses of all sizes around the world," said Brandon Butler, senior research analyst, Network Infrastructure at IDC. "Enterprises continue to explore new ways WLAN deployments can help connect workers, enable engagement with customers, and improve business processes."
Some highlights:
- The enterprise segment grew 2.6% year over year in 2Q18 to $1.5 billion.
- Consumer WLAN market revenue increased slightly, up 0.8% in 2Q18 compared to a year earlier, finishing at $1.0 billion.
- From a geographic perspective, the enterprise WLAN market saw its strongest growth in 2Q18 coming from Japan, which grew 23.0% year over year, and from the Latin America region, which rose 8.9% on a year-over-year basis. Mexico, Latin America's largest market, saw a 24.5% revenue increase from a year earlier while Brazil's revenues were up 30.1% on the year. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) also saw healthy growth rates with regional revenues increasing 6.3% compared to 2Q17. Notable CEE markets included Russia with a 7.3% year-over-year gain and Poland's with 12.9% growth.
- Cisco's worldwide enterprise WLAN revenue increased 3.3% year over year in 2Q18 and was up 12.5% sequentially between the first and second quarters of 2018. Cisco's worldwide market share was 43.6% in 2Q18, in line with the company's 43.3% share in 2Q17. IDC believes that the Meraki cloud-managed WLAN portfolio remains one of the primary growth drivers for Cisco.
- Aruba-HPE (excluding its OEM business) revenues fell 10.3% year over year in 2Q18 but rose 38.9% from 1Q18. Aruba-HPE's market share stands at 15.1% in 2Q18, down from 17.2% in 2Q17.
- ARRIS/Ruckus continued to perform very well in 2Q18 and grew 19.3% year over year and 1.5% sequentially. ARRIS/Ruckus now accounts for 6.7% of the enterprise WLAN market, up from 5.8% in the same quarter of 2017.
- Ubiquiti recorded another quarter of strong growth in 2Q18, increasing 10.8% year over year. Ubiquiti accounted for 5.7% of the enterprise market in 2Q18, up from 5.3% in 2Q17.
- Huawei once again experienced very strong growth in 2Q18, increasing 16.0% over 2Q17 and up 42.8% sequentially from 1Q18, while claiming 5.1% market share versus its 4.5% market share in 2Q17.
