The carrier WiFi equipment market was nearly in the first half of 2016, says researcher IHS Markit. The global carrier WiFi equipment market rose just over 1.3% in the first half of 2016 (H1 2016) from the second half of 2015 (H2 2015). In H1 2016, the majority of carrier WiFi equipment revenue was from mobile service providers, with large tier-1 mobile network operators (MNOs) such as China Mobile driving volume.
Brocade and Huawei were in a virtual tie for the carrier WiFi revenue market share lead in H1 2016. Brocade (Ruckus Wireless) was the carrier WiFi equipment revenue market share leader in H1 2016, just marginally ahead of Huawei. Cisco came in third, followed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Nokia. Globally, carrier WiFi equipment revenue reached $306 million in H1 2016, growing 1.3% over H2 2015. Demand for bandwidth continues to push the market forward, but modest vendor shipments and small cell adoption—combined with unit price erosion—tempered revenue growth in the first half of the year. We expect revenue growth to improve in the second half of 2016—but still hover in the single digits—owing to an acceleration in the adoption of 4G dual-mode small cell and WiFi access points.
Access points accounted for 82% of carrier WiFi gear revenue in H1 2016, with WiFi controllers comprising the remaining 18%. Mobile service providers accounted for the bulk of revenue (45%), followed by fixed-line service providers (35%) and wireless internet service providers (19%).
Subscriber identity module (SIM) access points have rapidly overtaken WiFi hotspot access points as the highest-volume carrier WiFi access point product segment, and the 802.11ac protocol made up 83% of carrier WiFi access point revenue in H1 2016. In terms of geographical revenue breakdown, Asia Pacific led EMEA by just 1%. North America was next, trailed distantly by the Caribbean and Latin America .