The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide WLAN market segments increased 4.5% year over year in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16), while declining 10.7% on a sequential basis, according to recent findings by IDC.
According to the results published in the IDC's Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker, the enterprise segment grew 8.6% year over year in the first quarter of this year, experiencing its best growth in more than a year. A number of factors contributed to this uptick, including refresh cycles, easing of economic concerns, greater availability of Wave 2 802.11ac products, and continued fulfillment of e-rate contracts in the education vertical in the United States.
IDC said that the 802.11ac standard continues on its brisk adoption path and now accounts for 59.6% of dependent access point unit shipments and 75.6% of dependent access point revenues, representing a noticeably faster adoption rate from 802.11n than what we saw with the 802.11a/b/g to 802.11n transition several years ago.
Meanwhile, consumer WLAN market revenue was flat on a year-over-year basis in 1Q16. The adoption of the 802.11ac standard in the consumer market has been significantly slower than in the enterprise segment. In 1Q16, the 802.11ac standard accounted for just 18.4% of shipments and 46.1% of revenue in the consumer category.
Nolan Greene, Senior Research Analyst, IDC
Network Infrastructure at IDC 2016 is off to a strong start in terms of WLAN market growth, compared to the situation in the first quarter of 2015. With no major macroeconomic or geopolitical disruptions during the quarter, and as many network refreshes came due, WLAN spending trended upward in 1Q16.
