IDC: Enterprise WLAN market to decline 12.7% year-over-year in 2024

The global enterprise wireless LAN (WLAN) market grew 3.2% year-over-year to $2.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024. According to IDC's tracking report, the enterprise WLAN market will decline 12.7% year-over-year in 2024, with final revenue of $9.4 billion.

The fourth quarter's annual increase builds on sequential growth of 4.8% from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2024 and 5.8% from the second quarter to the third quarter.

Meanwhile, the latest Wi-Fi standards are driving growth in the enterprise WLAN market. Wi-Fi 6E accounted for 29% of dependent access point market revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared with 22.5% a year ago. Wi-Fi 7 adoption also increased in the fourth quarter, accounting for 10.2% of dependent access point market revenue, up from 4.9% in the third quarter of 2024.

From a geographic perspective, the Americas enterprise WLAN market grew 6.1% year over year in 4Q24, but was down 16.7% for the full year. The United States, despite a strong fourth quarter (up 7.1% year over year), failed to offset early-year declines, resulting in a full-year year-over-year decline of 17.3%. A similar pattern emerged in the EMEA region: the enterprise WLAN market grew 8.2% year over year in 4Q24, but was down 9.3% for the full year. Asia Pacific revenues fell 6.9% year over year in 4Q24 and were down 8.8% for the full year. China's market fell 20.1% year over year in 4Q24 and was down 14.2% for the full year.

Here's how the major enterprise WLAN vendors performed:

Cisco: Enterprise WLAN revenues will increase 2.8% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2024, but will fall 19.1% for the full year, with final revenues of $3.7 billion. Cisco's market share will be 39.5% at the end of 2024.

HPE Aruba Networking: Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024 will increase by 17.9% year over year, but will be down 8.3% for the full year, with revenue of $1.4 billion and market share of 15.2% in 2024.

Huawei: Enterprise WLAN revenue will decrease by 6.2% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2024 and decrease by 1.6% for the whole year. Huawei's revenue in 2024 will be US$851 million, with a market share of 9.0%.

Ubiquiti: Enterprise WLAN revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024 increased by 39.3% year-on-year and increased by 20.5% for the full year, with full-year revenue of US$800 million and a market share of 8.5%.

Juniper Networks: Enterprise WLAN revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024 increased by 13.6% year-on-year and increased by 9.6% for the full year, with full-year revenue of US$484 million and a market share of 5.1%.