Data Centers’ Staggering 35% Growth Paced Structured Cabling Market in 2024

BSRIA’s Worldwide Marketing Intelligence (WMI) business recently released its annual analysis of the global structured cabling market, revealing the total market grew 10% during the year and the data center segment grew 35%. The total worldwide market for structured cable and connectivity reached $7.6 billion in 2024.

“Fiber sales had a very strong year, increasing by 27% and continuing to erode the share of copper,” BSRIA said when announcing the availability of its latest worldwide and country-by-country reports. “The growth rate for singlemode fiber, especially singlemode preterm, has been very strong, boosted by the growth in data centers, while growth of multimode was more modest.

“Sales of copper products increased marginally,” BSRIA added. “Cat 6 copper held onto the leading share in 2024, but Cat 6A should overtake Cat 6 in 2025. Asia is the most popular market for Cat 5e, while Cat 7, 7A, and 8 continue to grow from a small base.”

BSRIA segments the market for structured cabling into data centers and LANs (which we at Cabling Installation & Maintenance commonly refer to as enterprise LAN). BSRIA pointed, out, “Sales of LAN also increased marginally, but there are significant geographical differences, with Asia and the U.S. broadly coming out on top.”

It further noted, “All segments of the data center market increased their investment in artificial intelligence [AI] infrastructure in 2024, with hyperscaler data centers leading the way.

“Market challenges include global instability, tariffs, and supply-chain issues, as well as power-supply limitations, a lack of suitable locations and an increase in regulation. However, sectors like tech, finance, and healthcare will continue investing in AI, driving significant growth in the data center segment and providing opportunities for suppliers.”

As seen in the chart on this page, BSRIA anticipates the data center segment to grow by approximately 25% this year, then hold steady at an approximately 14% growth rate from 2026 through 2029—the last year of its analysis period. The LAN market is expected to maintain low-single-digit growth throughout the period.

BSRIA’s worldwide overview includes data from 29 countries and Southeast Asia. The firm undertook fresh market research for 17 countries across the 4th quarter of 2024 and 1st quarter of 2025. You can find out more about BSRIA’s structured cabling market analysis here.