Delays with the introduction of 802.11ax products is expected to slow the Enterprise Class-WLAN market growth in 2018, according to a new report from Dell’Oro Group.
“Several manufacturers of Enterprise-class products are postponing general availability of 802.11ax access points as they wait for more advanced chipsets and further development of the standard,” said Trent Dell’Oro, Business Analyst at Dell’Oro Group. “In light of this news, we lowered our Enterprise-class access point forecast for 2018 by over six percent. We imagine the market may come in lower than we predicted, depending on the degree to which customers push out projects as they wait for the new technology. In addition, the delay in 802.11ax WLAN Access Points may affect the campus switching market refresh cycle,” added Dell’Oro.
Additional highlights from the 1Q18 Wireless LAN Quarterly Report:
Enterprise-class Wireless LAN market revenue rose five percent year-over-year on nine percent unit growth.
Some vendors plan to move forward with lower featured 802.11ax products as early as 3Q18 with full-featured, higher-priced products following in early-to-mid 2019.
The transition to Wave 2 picked up during the quarter following a three quarter lull. We expect this migration will extend through 2019.
