Cloud to fluff up wireless LAN market

Wireless LAN sales to hit $13bn by 2019 on back of growth in cloud-managed deployments, says Dell'Oro

Driven by cloud deployments, the wireless LAN (WLAN) market is on track to expand by nearly a third over the next four years, according to latest research from the Dell'Oro Group.

The market watcher predicts that by 2019 WLAN revenues will hit $13bn (£8.4bn), up more than 30 per cent from 2015.

This market growth will be advanced by "continued adoption of cloud-managed WLAN services", and the impact of Wave 2 802.11ac access points.

Chris DePuy, vice president of Dell'Oro Group, said he expects Wave 2 devices to drive market growth.

"We expect robust uptake of 802.11ac Wave 2 devices during the forecast because in our user surveys, we have learned that enterprises have experienced significant and immediate wireless traffic increases immediately after 802.11ac Wave 1 installations are complete," he said.

"Users are consuming whatever WiFi bandwidth is made available to them in high-usage settings such as universities and K-12 schools."

It has been a busy time for the WLAN market of late, with Dell'Oro previously saying HP's acquisition of Aruba Networks has set the tone for an "exciting year" in the market.

Dell'Oro's positive prediction comes after IDC recently noted the EMEA WLAN market was down 12.6 per cent in value in Q1 2015, from the previous quarter.