* WLAN equipment strongest on the enterprise side
The market for wireless LAN equipment showed strong growth last year, despite a difficult fourth quarter.
Infonetics Research recently said that worldwide revenue for WLAN equipment dipped 5% in the fourth quarter of last year, but that didn’t stop the industry from hitting $2.8 billion in revenue for the full year of 2006, an 18% increase over 2005. Infonetics says it’s the third consecutive year of double-digit annual growth.
Interestingly, switches are the strongest part of the WLAN equipment market. They saw revenue grow 27% in 2006. Access points were 78% of equipment revenue last quarter, while WLAN switches represented 22%.
Infonetics tracks both independent and dependent access points (including enterprise, residential and service-provider access points), wireless broadband routers, outdoor bridges, WLAN switches and controllers, and WLAN network interface cards.
Meanwhile, consumer products supporting the draft of the IEEE 802.11n specification boosted sales.
The firm says worldwide WLAN equipment revenue should grow 51% between 2006 and 2010, to $4.3 billion. Enterprise-level WLAN equipment is where the growth is. Revenue for that area was up 24% in 2006, and Infonetics is saying it will grow strongly through 2010. At the same time, residential revenue will decrease, even though volumes will rise.
Cisco is tops in both areas, the firm says. Its Linksys brand is No. 1 for residential WLAN equipment revenue, while the main Cisco brand dominates the enterprise side. Netgear and D-Link follow Linksys, and Aruba and Motorola follow Cisco.
