Report: WLAN market booming behind enterprise, outdoor segments, but volatility may lie ahead

A recently published report by Dell’Oro Group reveals that the wireless LAN (WLAN) market grew 17 percent in the first quarter 2013, versus the same period from a year ago. Outdoor device shipments turned in the strongest performance, finds the report. Broadband customer premise equipment (CPE) with WLAN also grew rapidly, driven by recently-introduced high speed DOCSIS 3.0 cable equipment shipments.

“In 2013, vendors will introduce enterprise-class product refreshes that encompass two important advancements -- wireless and wired convergence, and the new wireless LAN standard, 802.11ac,” comments Chris DePuy, vice president of wireless LAN research at Dell’Oro Group. “Each of the leading vendors is employing a different strategy as they navigate these two market conditions," he added. "So, we expect market shares and growth rates could be volatile over the next several quarters."

Related: Technical paper maps wireless trends for 2012-2013

According to Dell'Oro, in the first quarter of 2013, vendors in the new report's combined Enterprise-Class and Outdoor Mesh Nodes category that increased revenue share the most, versus the prior quarter on a percentage point basis, were Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard.

In the SOHO market, Netgear was top-ranked by shipments, followed by Technicolor. In the Service Provider WiFi market, Cisco Systems, Ericsson and Ruckus Wireless were the top three vendors by revenue.

Learn more about the report here.

See also: Get ready for 'application-aware' 802.11ac Wi-Fi