The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments increased 11.5% on year in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to IDC. The enterprise segment continued to grow at a very healthy rate and increased 11.7% over the same period in 2012. While the pace of the enterprise WLAN market growth is starting to moderate from the 20%-plus on-year increases seen for several quarters, the enterprise WLAN market continues to be one of the fastest growing networking market segments. The consumer WLAN market also had an excellent quarter in the fourth quarter and grew 11.2% on year. The growth in the consumer WLAN space appears to be accelerating due to strong growth in the emerging markets and market transition from the older 802.11n standard to the newer and faster 802.11ac standard. For the full year of 2013, the enterprise WLAN market increased 15% on year and the consumer WLAN market jumped 11% on year.

 

"Across all geographies and in most of the key verticals, the expansion of mobility applications for enterprise IT continues to drive new investments in WLAN infrastructure," said Rohit Mehra, VP for network infrastructure at IDC. "While the growth rate has stabilized in recent quarters, new mobility applications, particularly for the education, retail, and healthcare verticals, along with expanded deployment options and the continued emergence of 802.11ac will lead to continued growth in the enterprise WLAN market."

 

From a geographic perspective, the enterprise WLAN market performed especially well in Latin America with its 37.2% on-year growth in the fourth quarter. Asia/Pacific increased 22.7% on year and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region increased 20.1% in the fourth quarter. On the other hand, North America was relatively weak this quarter and was up just 0.7% on year.

 

"Although revenues were flat in many mature economies in the fourth quarter, growth in enterprise WLAN deployments will remain strong in emerging markets and will regain momentum in developed markets in 2014," added IDC analyst Petr Jirovsky.