Research company Dell’Oro Group highlighted traction for Wi-Fi 7 compatible access points (APs) during Q2 as it issued numbers for the overall enterprise WLAN sector which showed a seventh consecutive period of annual revenue growth.

The company stated overall revenue approached $3 billion, without providing a comparable figure for Q2 2022. It placed Cisco and HPE as the leading vendors, highlighting continued gains in their respective market shares.

Research director Sian Morgan cited pent-up demand for digital transformation, an appetite for the 6GHz frequency band and loosening supply constraints as drivers.

In August 2022, Morgan predicted Wi-Fi 7 AP shipments to begin to increase “later in 2023” due to a backlog of Wi-Fi 6 equipment, but the company last month noted vendors in China had established an early lead in the former standard.

The research company predicted more vendors will begin selling Wi-Fi 7 equipment later this year, though noted global adoption of Wi-Fi 6E is expanding, representing 7 per cent of indoor APs shipped in Q2.

Morgan predicted revenue acceleration as more Wi-Fi 6E devices become available, along with “further harmonisation of worldwide regulations and approval of standard power APs in the US”.

Dell’Oro Group expects market conditions to become more competitive in 2024, though variances in manufacturers’ predictions of when backlogs will decline could result in uneven revenue.