The revenue of the wireless local area network (WLAN) market in the enterprise segment experienced a growth of 7.6 percent in 2023, reaching $10.8 billion, IDC said.
However, the enterprise WLAN market has witnessed a significant decline of 25.5 percent in Q4 2023. This drop was attributed to corporate customers implementing a record amount of product inventory during this period.
The first half of 2023 (1H23) saw a remarkable surge in enterprise WLAN revenues, rising by 43.3 percent compared to the first half of 2022. This increase was primarily driven by vendors shipping backlogged products. However, in the second half of the year, revenues fell by 16.6 percent as new product orders slowed, and customers focused on managing heightened product inventory.
In Q4 2023, there was an increase in the adoption of Wi-Fi 6E, which extends Wi-Fi usage to include the 6 GHz band of spectrum. Within the enterprise-dependent access point (AP) segment, Wi-Fi 6E revenues grew by 11.7 percent between the third and fourth quarters of 2023, comprising 22.6 percent of dependent AP quarterly revenues and 10.0 percent of unit shipments. Wi-Fi 6 accounted for the majority of the remaining dependent AP revenues (72.8 percent) and unit shipments (77.5 percent), with the legacy Wi-Fi 5 standard making up the remainder.
CONSUMER WLAN
In the consumer segment of the WLAN market, there was a decline of 12.8 percent in 2023, with a further fall of 14.5 percent in Q4 2023. Wi-Fi 6 dominated the consumer market’s revenues at 64.1 percent, while Wi-Fi 5 accounted for over a quarter (26.5 percent) of revenues. Wi-Fi 6E adoption in the consumer segment remained limited, representing just 6.7 percent of revenues in Q4 2023.
Cisco, despite experiencing a 40.3 percent decline in enterprise WLAN revenues year-over-year in Q4 2023, saw an 11.2 percent rise for the full year, reaching $4.6 billion, maintaining a market share of 42.6 percent for the year.
HPE Aruba Networking experienced a 21.6 percent decline in enterprise WLAN revenues year-over-year in Q4 2023 but rose by 7.0 percent for the full year, capturing a market share of 14.6 percent in 2023.
Huawei’s enterprise WLAN revenues witnessed a marginal decline of 0.4 percent in Q4 2023, yet rose by 13.8 percent for the full year, securing a market share of 8.0 percent for calendar year 2023.
Ubiquiti and CommScope both faced declines in enterprise WLAN revenues in Q4 2023. Ubiquiti’s revenues fell by 11.3 percent, while CommScope’s declined by 33.1 percent. However, for the full year, CommScope experienced a notable rise of 23.3 percent, securing a market share of 4.4 percent in 2023.
Juniper Networks, on the other hand, witnessed a 13.2 percent increase in enterprise WLAN revenues year-over-year in Q4 2023, with a rise of 26.6 percent for the full year, capturing a market share of 4.1 percent.
