802.11ac access point adoption gains traction
“802.11n device shipments still dominate the market, accounting for more than two thirds of total device shipments; however, 802.11ac access point adoption is starting to gain traction,” says Jake Saunders, VP and practice director of forecasting.
Devices with the very latest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ac, started to enter the market in late 2012. According to ABI Research’s “Wi-Fi Equipment” Market Data, a total of 0.2 million consumer 802.11ac Wi-Fi APs shipped in 1Q 2013. “802.11ac protocol enables speeds up to 1.3 Gbps as well as better coverage than 802.11n. ABI Research expects that 1 million of 802.11ac consumer access points will be shipped by the end of 2013,” adds Khin Sandi Lynn, industry analyst.
A new Wi-Fi standard 802.11ad (WiGig) which uses 60 GHz band and delivers speeds up to 7 Gbps was approved by IEEE in early 2013. The very first 802.11ad capable products are likely to enter market around the end of the year.
In the SOHO/Consumer Wi-Fi equipment market, TP-LINK maintains the dominant market share with 15%, followed by NETGEAR and D-Link with 12% and 11% respectively. In the enterprise WLAN sector, ZTE has the largest market share, accounting for 39% of total access point shipments while Cisco holds the second largest market share of 26%, and HP networking ranks third as it overtook the market share of Aruba Networks as of late 2012.
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
