The average selling price of wireless equipment is starting to increase in a sign that 802.11ac products are starting to make inroads, new research has claimed.
The news comes amid the first drop in the wireless LAN equipment market for the first time in almost two years, the Q1 market report from Infonetics, which tracks access points, WLAN controllers and Wi-Fi phones for businesses, has found.
The wireless LAN equipment market saw sales fall by 10.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2013 to €807 million, but is up 3.3 percent on the same period last year. Across 2013, the WLAN equipment market grew 11 percent to €3.3 billion.
There was good news for 802.11ac access points, with as many products shipping during the first quarter, just under 300,000, as there was during the entirety of 2013.
Independent access points saw its market bottom out, with sales now overtaking those of interactive access points. There was bad news for makers of Wi-Fi phones, who saw sales fall 15 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Ruckus had the best growth of any WLAN vendors, with sales growing by a third during the past 12 months.
Infonetics predicted growth in the WLAN market would speed up in the coming quarters as operators spend more money on these products to support the growing numbers of wireless devices and as they upgrade their networks.
Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research, said: “While WLAN growth slowed last quarter, pricing across all access point types rose for the first time in three quarters. This is an emerging positive sign that 802.11ac is slowly starting to change the trajectory of the market and will drive renewed revenue growth over the coming quarters.”