The IDC says in a new report published Thursday that the combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments increased 13.7% year over year in the third quarter of 2013.
The details are listed in the latest edition of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker.
Once again, the enterprise segment continued to grow at a very healthy rate and increased another 12.8% over the same period last year.
While the pace of the enterprise WLAN market growth is starting to slow moderately from the 20%-plus year-over-year increases seen several quarters ago, the enterprise WLAN market continues to be one of the fastest growing networking markets out there.
The consumer WLAN market also had an excellent quarter in 3Q13 and grew at an even faster rate than the enterprise class segment with its 14.6% year-over-year jump. The growth in the consumer WLAN space appears to be accelerating due to strong growth in the emerging markets.
“Across all verticals and geographies, the explosion of mobility with bring your own device (BYOD) continues to drive new investments in WLAN infrastructure,” says Rohit Mehra, Vice President of Network Infrastructure at IDC. “While growth has slowed from previous quarters, especially in North America, the growing mobility needs of education, retail, and healthcare, among other verticals, along with the expected rise in 802.11ac uptake will lead to continued growth in the enterprise WLAN market.”
