Sales of Wi-Fi 7 Access Points (APs) will reach nearly three quarters of total APs revenues by 2028, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. The introduction of Wi-Fi 7 to enterprises will be one of the few bright spots for vendors in 2024, in a market that is expected to contract by 9 percent.
“There has been a flurry of vendors announcing new Wi-Fi 7 APs in January,” said Siân Morgan, Wireless LAN (WLAN) Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “We expect that Wi-Fi 6E APs will still outsell Wi-Fi 7 in 2024, but adoption of Wi-Fi 7 will be responsible for all of the revenue growth by 2025.
“However, total WLAN AP revenues are expected to decrease in 2024. After the backlog-driven revenues of 2023, enterprises are busy digesting all the equipment they received. It’s going to take a few more quarters of downturn before the market begins to expand again,” continued Morgan.
Additional highlights from the Wireless LAN 5-Year January 2024 Forecast Report:
- The geographic balance of WLAN revenues changed in 2023, with North America and Europe taking share from China.
- Wi-Fi 6E adoption is still growing but is forecasted to peak in 2024.
- Average Selling Prices for APs are expected to contract, putting further pressure on vendor revenues.
- HPE’s announced intent to purchase Juniper Networks has increased expectations of revenues from Public Cloud-Managed WLAN.
- The first AP shipments of the standard expected to be branded as ‘Wi-Fi 8’ are expected in 2028.
