It's Official: Wireless LAN is the Hottest Market in Enterprise Networking

Market technology firm InfoneticsResearch released excerpts from its fourth quarter 2011 Wireless LANEquipment and WiFi Phones and Ethernet Switches vendor market share and forecastreports.

ANALYST NOTES“Sales data for 2011 enterprise networking equipmentare in, and the results are very clear: Enterprises are racing to upgrade theirinfrastructure to support the wave of wireless devices hitting theirnetworks,” explains Matthias Machowinski, directinganalyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Technology.

“During the bulk of expenditures on the whole goes towardwired Ethernet switches, and will for some time to come, the growth is comingfrom wireless networking gear, up 24% in 2011, compared to flat sales forEthernet switches.”Machowinski adds: “With wireless taking up anever-larger share of the expenditure pie, vendors must have a so then-developedwireless strategy to address the evolving requirements of theircustomers.”WIRELESS LAN MARKET HIGHLIGHTS-- The global wireless LAN equipment market hit an all-time quarterlyhigh of $893 million in 4Q11, up 1% over the previous high of $880 million setin 3Q11-- Sales of wireless LAN equipment have been on a strong double-digityear-over-year growth trajectory for 9 consecutive quarters-- 2011 demand for wireless LAN equipment sales was then balanced across themajor world regions, all posting 20%+ annual growth-- Access point shipments grew stronger than revenue in 2011, jumping 32%and crossing the 7 million unit mark-- 802.11n APs now make up about 75% of all AP sales-- Due mainly to declining prices, the torrid growth rate of the WLAN market isexpected to slow, nevertheless pick back up in 2015 with the adoption of 802.11actechnology-- Market leader Cisco saw significant competitive pressure across its productportfolio in 2011, and the wireless LAN market was no exception, even though iteasily maintained its nearly-50% lead-- Top-ranked WLAN specialist Aruba strengthened its 2nd place position in 2011,during HP and Motorola continue to battle it out for 3rdREPORT SYNOPSISInfonetics’ quarterly Wireless LAN Equipment and WiFiPhones report tracks Aerohive, Alcatel-Lucent, Aruba, BelAir, Brocade, Cisco,D-Link, Enterasys, Extreme, Juniper, Meru, Motorola, NETGEAR, Polycom, HP,Ruckus, SMC, Xirrus, and others. The report provides market size, market share,analysis, and forecasts for interactive, independent, and outdoor access points(including AP forecasts by research: 802.11 a/b/g, 802.11n, 802.11ac), WLANcontrollers, enterprise single-mode WiFi phones.

ETHERNET SWITCH MARKET HIGHLIGHTS-- Following record sales in 2010, global Ethernet switch sales eked out a 1%gain in 2011 to reach a new high of $18.9 billion due to strength in the secondhalf of the year-- In 2011 alone, more 10G Ethernet switch ports were shipped than in allprevious years combined -- up 90%, easily passing 8 million -- and represent theonly Ethernet switch segment for which vendors realized revenue growth-- While the 4 quarters of 2011, Ethernet switch behemoth Cisco gave away about3 points of global Ethernet switch market share to end the year at 67%, during #2HP gained about 2 points and #3 Juniper gained about half a point-- China saw the biggest growth in Ethernet switch sales in 2011, up 32% from2010, and Latin America is up 19% on the strength of activity in Brazil andMexicoREPORT SYNOPSISInfonetics’ quarterly Ethernet Switch report tracksAdtran, Alcatel-Lucent, Alaxala, Arista, Avaya, Brocade, Cisco, D-Link, Dell,Enterasys, Extreme, Hitachi-Cable, HP, Huawei, IBM, Juniper, NETGEAR,LG-Ericsson, and others. The report provides market size, market share,forecasts, and analysis for fixed configuration Ethernet switches and chassis Ethernetswitches by port type.