FRAMINGHAM, MA – The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments rose 2.3% year-over-year in the first quarter, according to International Data Corp. The enterprise segment fell 2.2% year-over-year in the first quarter, with $1.3 billion in revenue.

The first quarter began showing the impact of the Covid-19 global pandemic on the enterprise WLAN market. The novel coronavirus began spreading in China early in the quarter, then expanded into Europe and North America. The subsequent lockdown of economies represented a headwind for the enterprise WLAN market.

A driver for the enterprise WLAN market is the new Wi-Fi 6 standard, also known as 802.11ax. Across the enterprise market, Wi-Fi 6-supported dependent access points made up 11.8% of unit shipments and 21.8% of revenues. The previous generation standard, 802.11ac, still made up the majority of shipments (80.9%) and revenues (76.2%).

Meanwhile, the consumer WLAN market grew 5.5% year-over-year in the first quarter. Within the consumer market, 62.5% of shipments and 79.4% of revenues were for 802.11ac products. APs supporting the older 802.11n standard still made up 36.9% of unit shipments and 17.6% of revenues, not surprising given the price sensitivity seen across many emerging markets, says IDC.

"Wireless connectivity remains an important technology for organizations around the world, as more users and devices than ever rely on mobile devices to connect to bandwidth-intensive applications," said Brandon Butler, senior research analyst, Network Infrastructure at IDC. "The WLAN market is not immune to the impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic that has been sweeping across the world over the last few months. Results from the market's first quarter of 2020 show the early effect of the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, which will continue to impact the market into the second quarter of 2020."

The WLAN market saw strong growth in the Middle East and Africa region, increasing 8.4% year-over-year in the first quarter. United Arab Emirates was up 12%, and Turkey's market grew 15.7%. The US market grew 6.9%, while the Canadian enterprise WLAN market was up 10.6%.

The market in China declined 23% in the first quarter. The broader Asia/Pacific region, excluding Japan and China, was down 10.6%, with India declining 13.6%, and Australia down 15.6%. Japan's market fell 2.8%.

European markets had mixed results, with Central and Eastern Europe up 1.8% year-over-year, driven by Russia's enterprise WLAN market growing 6% and Poland increasing 6.6%. Western Europe was off 6.2%, with declines in the UK (3.9%), Germany (7.7%), and France (9.8%).

"The enterprise WLAN market saw mixed results across geographies, based largely on the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic," said Petr Jirovsky, research director, Worldwide Networking Trackers. "The pandemic initially hit Asian countries, which resulted in many regional economies slowing investments in WLAN technology. Given the pandemic has now spread across the rest of the world, IDC expects impacts on the enterprise WLAN market to continue into the second quarter of 2020."

Cisco's enterprise WLAN revenues decreased 6.7% year-over-year in the first quarter to $611 million. Cisco remains the market share leader, finishing the quarter with 45.7% share, up from 44.6% in 2019.

HPE-Aruba revenues rose 14.2%. The company's market share increased from 13.8% for 2019 to 14.4% in the first quarter of this year.

Ubiquiti saw its enterprise WLAN revenues rise 24.8%. The company's market share stood at 9.5% in the first quarter, up from 7% for 2019.

CommScope (formerly ARRIS/Ruckus) revenues declined in the first quarter 4.7% year-over-year. The company held 5.2% market share during the period.

Huawei's revenues declined 15%. Its market share stood at 3.8% to end the quarter.

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