Rapid Expansion of Wi-Fi 7 Leaves Adoption Headroom
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – June 4, 2026 – According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, security, networks, and data center industries, 1Q 2026 WLAN revenues were driven by a 14 percent growth in unit shipments, and an average selling price that is starting to creep up.
“Several vendors have increased WLAN list prices to compensate for increasing costs of memory components caused by the AI infrastructure boom,” said Siân Morgan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “The full impact of price increases has not materialized in vendor revenues, but despite this, the WLAN market has grown at double digit rates for five consecutive quarters.
“Wi-Fi 7 revenue grew by triple digits,” continued Morgan, “Cisco, Ubiquiti and Huawei are leading the Wi-Fi 7 market. However, adoption was still only 37 percent of Indoor APs shipped in 1Q 2026. This presents an opportunity for all vendors to refresh older technology with the latest gear.”
Additional highlights from the 1Q 2026 Wireless LAN Quarterly Report:
- With the shortage of memory components still not resolved, we expect prices to continue rising, and equipment lead times to be variable in a supply-driven market.
- Shipments of access points with multi-gig and 10 Gbps interfaces are growing rapidly, putting additional demands on campus switches.
- Several new AIOps feature announcements are highlighting vendor differentiation in the WLAN market.
The Dell’Oro Group Wireless LAN Quarterly Report offers complete, in-depth coverage of the Enterprise Outdoor and Indoor markets, Wireless LAN Controllers and Licenses, with tables containing manufacturers’ revenue, average selling prices, and unit shipments by the following wireless standards: 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7), 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6 and 6E [6 GHz]), 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) Wave 1 vs. Wave 2, 802.11n, and historic IEEE 802.11 standards. The Enterprise market is portrayed by Public Cloud vs. Premises and Private Cloud deployments, by geographic region, as well as by ten Vertical markets. To purchase these reports, please contact us by email at dgsales@delloro.com.
Dell’Oro Group is a market research firm that specializes in strategic competitive analysis in the telecommunications, security, enterprise networks, and data center infrastructure markets. Our firm provides in-depth quantitative data and qualitative analysis to facilitate critical, fact-based business decisions. For more information, contact Dell’Oro Group at +1.650.622.9400 or visit www.delloro.com.
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