Cisco Unstoppable in WLANs -- Inside the Enterprise and Out

Cisco Unstoppable in WLANs -- Inside the Enterprise and Out

5/31/2012 -- There's just something about the first few months of a new year.

Cisco Systems Inc. and its rivals suffered setbacks in a pair of key markets in the first three months of 2012. For starters, there was a 14 percent decline between late-2011 and early-2012 in the $15 billion routing and switching segment. But the global WLAN market was also down during the same period, albeit by just 2.9 percent.

That's according to market watcher International Data Corp. (IDC), which paints a picture of a worldwide WLAN market that's much less tumultuous than the carrier routing and switching segment. According to IDC, for example, global WLAN sales for the first three months of 2012 were up by a robust 13.9 percent relative to the year-ago-period.?

Cisco controls more than half of that market. In fact, Cisco managed to increase its share of the worldwide WLAN market, albeit slightly, boosting its take from 51.0 to 52.4 percent.

Cisco's cause was likely helped by what IDC describes as "torrid growth" in the enterprise WLAN space, which was up more than a quarter (27.2 percent) over the year-ago period.

IDC attributes this growth to the juggernaut that is bring-your-own-device, or BYOD.

"The momentum behind bring your own device ... in the enterprise continues unabated, and is the single largest factor driving enterprise mobility and WLAN market growth," said Rohit Mehra, director of enterprise communications infrastructure for IDC, in a prepared release.

That isn't all, however, according to Mehra: "Along with the increasing use of Wi-Fi by service providers to offload cellular data traffic, current market drivers in key verticals will ensure the market for enterprise-class WLAN devices and solutions will see continued traction, and that the market is expected to stay vibrant for the foreseeable future."

Enterprise WLAN sales were at their most torrid in Latin American, where sales were up a staggering 73.8 percent relative to early-2011. If Cisco's strong in Latin America, it's even stronger in North America, which -- in Q1 of 2012 -- accounted for almost half of Cisco's global WLAN sales. During the same period, the North American region realized an impressive 34.5 percent boost in enterprise WLAN sales. "The positive results in the enterprise WLAN market over the last several quarters, which includes several established and emerging vendors, indicates that WLAN investments remain high on the priority list of many CIOs," said Petr Jirovsky, a senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Networking Trackers Group, in a statement.

Cisco saw its share of the enterprise WLAN increase by 27 percent, relative to the year-ago period. The networking giant is verging ever closer to the half-billion dollar mark in enterprise WLAN sales, with $414 million in Q1 revenues, IDC said.
--By Stephen Swoyer

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