Indian networking market is one of the fastest growing market due to increase in demand of connectivity. In recent times, especially post pandemic, demand of internet connection has increased due to WFH & LFH trends. This lead to gaining good momentum in demand across major market. According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Wireless LAN (WLAN) Tracker, the Indian WLAN market had a YoY growth of 8.8% during Q4 2020. The market stood at USD 61.7 million (by Vendor Revenue) majorly contributed by consumer gateway routers. While enterprise class WLAN took a significant decline of 26.3% YoY, the consumer gateway router demand picked rapidly by 57.8% YoY to support the growing demand of employees and students working out of their homes.
Despite a growth of 8.8% in the WLAN segment, the enterprise class WLAN segment continues to remain the most affected networking segment with a significant decline of 26.3% YoY owing to the slowdown in campus investment caused by COVID-19. However, the sluggish enterprise class market was compensated by the growth of consumer gateway routers with a staggering 57.8% YoY growth during Q4 2020. The growth in the consumer gateway routers was due to the remote working and online schooling requirements.
With a market share of 33.2%, TP-Link was the market leader in the WLAN segment during Q4 2020, followed by D-Link due to the rapid increase in demand for consumer gateway routers. Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise were the key vendors driving the market for enterprise class WLAN during Q4 2020.
Enterprise class WLAN remains to be most affected segment since the COVID-19 driven lockdown owing to the drop in campus investments. However, the market is opening with multiple enterprises looking out to adopt cloud-driven WLAN that will enable management efficiency.
Manufacturing and professional services are the top verticals contributing to the enterprise WLAN business with investments coming from automobiles, and pharmaceutical enterprises. Business from other key verticals like government and education remained slow.