* WLAN equipment sales climb, research firm says
Sales of wireless LAN equipment rose 9% to $714.7 million in the third quarter of last year, prompting Synergy Research Group to estimate total WLAN sales in 2004 at $2.8 billion.
By contrast, the Ethernet switch market is about $12 billion today, according to other research firms. But while those firms expect Ethernet switch sales to grow slowly over the next few years, SRG expects WLAN equipment sales to more than double by 2009.
That’s because, year over year, WLAN equipment sales growth is even more striking. Revenue in the third quarter of 2004 was 22% higher than the same period in the previous year.
The rise in sales of enterprise equipment was even higher, at 28%. SRG says enterprise companies are returning to IT investments, and they have been picking up WLAN gear since 2003. Healthcare, retail, manufacturing and education all are contributing to this trend, the firm says.
Plus, WLAN capabilities are in everything now – laptops, phones, PDAs, and so forth. That means we’ll continue to see demand increase.
SRG says sales for enterprise uses will end up being 42% higher in 2004 than the previous year, easily making it a billion-dollar business on its own.
The small-office/home market was still larger for WLANs in the third quarter, at $394 million. That represented an increase of 12% quarter-to-quarter and 18% over the same period in 2003.
There, SRG sees low prices, strong sales of 802.11g products and multimedia devices for the home as being key drivers.
