The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments experienced year-over-year market growth of 21.9% for the full year 2011, while staying relatively flat quarter-over-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11). The enterprise segment paved the way in 4Q11 with an impressive 22.3% year-over-year growth over a strong fourth quarter in 2010.

The next phase of enterprise mobility will include an increasing number of enterprise and cloud-based apps, motivating IT to reassess their network infrastructure needs, and that bodes well for network equipment vendors targeting some of the core vertical segments of the enterprise.

Strong growth in enterprise WLAN with the market reaching $3.02 billion for the full year 2011, and $829 million for the fourth quarter. With the consumer class WLAN segment also coming in at $832 million for the fourth quarter, the enterprise segment is now just under 50% of the worldwide WLAN market.

From a regional perspective, the enterprise WLAN market grew fastest in the Latin America region with a 86.2% year-over-year increase. However the 32.0% growth in EMEA and the 19.5% increase in the U.S. also reflected market strength in these regions.

Enterprise WLAN Vendor Highlights

• Cisco's 4Q11 enterprise WLAN revenue globally grew 10.9% year over year, and a more moderate 5.0% sequentially, reaching $424 million in the quarter. The North American market accounted for 50.3% of Cisco's worldwide WLAN revenue in 4Q11. Cisco's worldwide market share now stands at 51.2%, up from 49.6% in 3Q11 but down from 56.4% a year ago.
• Aruba (excluding its OEM business) increased 43.9% year over year in 4Q11, and now holds 11.6% of the enterprise WLAN market.
• HP's 4Q11 enterprise WLAN revenue grew 17.5% year over year, but declined 6.8% sequentially.
• MSI (Motorola Solutions) declined a significant 24.3% over the third quarter, but was still up 16.0% year over year in 4Q11.