Worldwide WLAN market growth continues unabated in Q2 of 2012

FRAMINGHAM, USA: The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments experienced year-over-year growth of 12.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (2Q12).

According to the 2Q12 results published in the International Data Corp. (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker, the enterprise segment continued on its path of torrid growth with an impressive 24.8 percent increase over the same period last year. 2Q12 was the seventh quarter in the row, and nine out of the last ten, with annual growth in access of 20 percent.

"While the momentum with BYOD continues unabated, the market got an additional boost from the education segment buying season and that is reflected in the second quarter results," said Rohit Mehra, director, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, at IDC. "Along with the increasing use of Wi-Fi by service providers to offload cellular data traffic, current market drivers in key enterprise verticals such as education will ensure the market for enterprise-class WLAN devices and solutions will see continued traction, and that the market is expected to stay vibrant for the foreseeable future."

From a geographic perspective, the enterprise WLAN market grew fastest in Japan and in Latin America with 64.2 percent and 58.7 percent year-over-year growth, respectively. The Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region had a very strong quarter overall as well with 30.2 percent year-over-year growth. EMEA achieved this growth despite the fact that Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece combined actually declined 0.5 percent year-over-year in 2Q12.

North America grew 25.4 percent year over year and, as the largest global region, continues to be a market of relative strength. On the other hand, Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) grew just 3.1 percent year over year in 2Q12 as Korea, India, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia all declined on a year-over-year basis and China increased only 2.2 percent year over year.

"The strong broad-based results in the enterprise WLAN market, especially from some key countries and regions, as well as several established and emerging vendors, indicates that enterprise mobility remains high on the priority list of many CIOs," said Petr Jirovsky, senior research analyst, Worldwide Networking Trackers Group.

Key enterprise WLAN vendor updates
* Cisco's 2Q12 worldwide enterprise WLAN revenue grew a strong 36.7 percent year over year reaching $498 million in the quarter. The North American market accounted for 57.8 percent of Cisco's worldwide WLAN revenue in 2Q12. Cisco's worldwide market share now stands at 52.4 percent, up from 51.2 percent in 1Q12 and from 47.8 percent in 2Q11.

* Aruba (excluding its OEM business) grew its revenues 17.5 percent year over year in 2Q12, and now holds 11.1 percent of the enterprise WLAN market.

* HP underperformed the overall enterprise WLAN market in 2Q12 and was essentially flat year over year. As a result HP's market share declined from the 7.3 percent recorded in 2Q11 to 5.9 percent this quarter.

* Aerohive, Meraki and Ruckus significantly outperformed the overall enterprise WLAN market.