ABI Research reports that worldwide consumer Wi-Fi customer premises equipment (CPE) shipments surpassed 43.3 million at the end of Q1 of 2013, a 16.8% increase from Q4 of 2012. According to the firm's Wi-Fi Equipment market study, as for devices with the very latest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ac, which started to enter the market in late 2012, a total of 0.2 million consumer 802.11ac Wi-Fi access points (APs) shipped in Q1 of 2013.
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“802.11n device shipments still dominate the market, accounting for more than two thirds of total device shipments," comments Jake Saunders, VP and practice director of forecasting at ABI. "However, 802.11ac access point (AP) adoption is starting to gain traction."
“The 802.11ac protocol enables speeds up to 1.3 Gbps as well as better coverage than 802.11n," adds Khin Sandi Lynn, industry analyst for ABI. "ABI Research expects that 1 million of 802.11ac consumer access points will be shipped by the end of 2013."
Additionally, according to ABI, the very first 802.11ad (WiGig) capable products are likely to enter market around the end of this year. The new 802.11ad Wi-Fi standard uses the 60 GHz band, delivers speeds up to 7 Gbps, and was approved by IEEE in early 2013.
See also: Potential use cases for 802.11ac, 802.11ad Wi-Fi explored
ABI Research’s Wi-Fi Equipment market data covers the worldwide consumer and enterprise WLAN equipment market. The report tracks equipment by product type, wireless protocol, and geography. It contains market shares of leading WLAN equipment manufacturers worldwide based on quarterly shipment data and forecasts. The findings are part of ABI Research’s Broadband CPE, Broadband Subscribers, and Wi-Fi Research services.
Also according to the new report: 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.
For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.
Take Our Poll: When do you plan to deploy 802.11ac WiFi in your network?
Related: Cisco technical paper breaks down 802.11ac Wi-Fi
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