IDC: The Global WLAN market grew slowly in first quarter of 2015

IDC: The Global WLAN market grew slowly in first quarter of 2015

The global consumer and enterprise wireless LAN (WLAN) market increased by first quarter of 2015 in 0.6% compared with the same period last year. According to the initial results in the global quarterly WLAN tracking report released by the IDC, the company's market growth slowed down significantly compared with the previous few quarters, and only increased by 3.0% compared with the same period last year.

After several quarters of rapid growth, the growth rate of the enterprise WLAN market has dropped to the lowest level in years, due to two factors: education income in the United States may be delayed due to e-level funding for K12 public schools. Another factor is the weakness of the public sector and Asia Pacific in the first quarter of this year.

The 802.11ac standard is still moving towards becoming the mainstream WLAN. In the seven quarters, from the perspective of product availability, the 802.11ac standard has already accounted for more than 40% of the shipments of non-independent access nodes, accounting for 55% of the revenue of non-independent access nodes, this speed is much faster than the transition from 802.11a/B/g to 802.11n we saw a few years ago. As the second wave of 802.11ac products entered the market in the second half of 2015, IDC expects that by 2016, 802.11ac will become the mainstream standard in terms of shipment volume and income. The increasing demand for enterprise WLAN is still the driving force of this change.

The consumer WLAN market fell by first quarter of 2015 in 2.0% compared with the same period last year, reversing the trend of year-on-year growth in the past few quarters. The transition from the old 802.11n standard to the newer and faster 802.11ac standard has been driving this sector. Global consumer 802.11ac WLAN revenue increased by 143.0% year-on-year, but only increased by 2.1% year-on-year, which cannot offset the decline in consumer 802.11n revenue (down 21.7% year-on-year, down 14.9% year-on-year.

Nolan Greene, a Network Infrastructure analyst at IDC, said, "from education, healthcare to large enterprises, the tendency to access wireless networks will continue, this is especially true when the second wave of 802.11ac products that allow more applications to enter the wireless world emerged." "Although seasonal factors and future e-level funding factors slowed down growth in first quarter of 2015, we still believe that the development momentum of 802.11ac will repeat in the next few quarters," Nolan Greene said ."

From a geographical perspective, the enterprise WLAN market in Latin America once again showed an extraordinary market growth rate. In first quarter of 2015, the year-on-year growth rate reached 33.7%. The growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) continued to grow steadily for the fourth consecutive quarter, up 11.5% year on year. The growth rate of Canada's market also surpassed that of the global market again, up 7.4% year on year. The WLAN market for enterprises in Asia Pacific experienced moderate growth, up 1.9% year on year. The US market was significantly affected by the delay in purchasing WLAN in the K12 sector in the education market due to the E-level funding in the second quarter of 5.4%, a decrease from.

Petr Jirovsk networks, research manager for Worldwide Networking Trackers, said, "in many regions, due to the healthy growth of 802.11ac popularity in the first quarter, global organizations are increasingly dependent on Enterprise WLAN ." He said, "however, the decline and the appearance of seasonal weakness in the US market due to the delay of projects have a great impact on global growth ."

Latest performance of major enterprise WLAN suppliers

Cisco's global WLAN revenue in first quarter of 2015 was once again the same as the overall market level, up 2.4% year on year, but fell by 16.0% year on month. Cisco's share in the global market declined slightly in first quarter of 2015, from over 2014 in the past two quarters and the first quarter of 48% to 47.8% in the current quarter. IDC believes that the cloud management WLAN product of Meraki remains one of Cisco's major growth drivers.

Aruba (excluding its OEM business) was a highlight in the first quarter of 2015, with a year-on-year increase of 20.1% and a year-on-year growth of 0.8%. Aruba's market share jumped from fourth quarter of 2014 in 11.8% to first quarter of 2015 in 14.0%. in first quarter of 2014, the company's market share was only 12.0%.

In first quarter of 2015, Ruckus performed better than the overall market, up 7.2% year-on-year, but down 5.0% year-on-year. Ruckus currently accounts for 6.9% of the market, a slight increase from first quarter of 2014 in 6.6%.

HP Networking fell 2015 in the first quarter of fiscal year 15.5% and 28.2% in the same period last year. The uncertainty surrounding hp wlan customers may cause Aruba to expand its market share. HP's market share dropped from first quarter of 2014 in 4.4% to first quarter of 2015 in 3.6%.