The wireless market continues to grow, but the euphoria of the beginning of the year is clearly subsiding. Although the third quarter of 2025 closed with a solid result on the upside, the real revolution is not happening in the overall sales columns, but inside the leaderboard. Whilst the old stagers are stabilising their positions or losing share, the “contenders” are recording results that the partner channel cannot pass by. Are we witnessing a permanent reshuffling of forces in the network industry?
As recently as the first half of 2025, the Enterprise WLAN market was still posting double-digit growth, whetting the appetites of integrators and distributors. However, the third quarter brought a slight cooling off. According to the latest IDC data, the sector grew by 7.8% year-on-year, generating sales of $2.7 billion. This is still a solid result, but clearly lower than the 10.5% or 13.4% recorded in the first and second quarters respectively.
However, looking only at overall sales volumes can be misleading. For beneath the surface of stable growth, there is a fierce battle for customers in which the previous hegemons must increasingly look back.
Stabilisation at the top, explosion in the “second line”
The biggest surprise of the past quarter is not how much the market has grown, but who has gained the most from this growth. The vendor landscape (Vendor Landscape) has clearly polarised.
Cisco still rules indivisibly at the top. With a market share of 37.4%, the US giant remains the default choice for the largest corporations. However, its revenues in the period under review fell by 3% year-on-year (to US$992.4 million). This may suggest some saturation in the premium segment or prolonged decision cycles at the largest customers, who are holding back on further investments.
In second place on the podium, with a 19.3% market share, is HPE. The company, which finalised its acquisition of Juniper in July 2025, saw revenue growth of a modest 1.6%. While this merger may change the balance of power in the long term, for now we see stabilisation rather than synergies that would catapult sales performance upwards.
However, the real dynamics can only be seen behind the leaders. The title of ‘dark horse’ of the third quarter unquestionably belongs to Ubiquiti. The manufacturer recorded impressive revenue growth of as much as 47.1%, achieving sales of over USD 300 million and capturing 11.3% of the market. This is a clear sign that customers – especially in the SME and mid-market sectors – are increasingly looking for solutions that offer better value for money, abandoning expensive licences and complex enterprise ecosystems in favour of simpler-to-use platforms.
Huawei is performing equally impressively . Despite global challenges and trade barriers, the Chinese giant increased WLAN revenues by 33.7%, now controlling 9% of the market. The list is rounded off by CommScope (Ruckus Networks), which also boasts a great result – growth of 18% confirms that in specific verticals (e.g. hospitality or high-density), Ruckus still has a loyal customer base.
Europe buys the most
For the Polish IT channel, however, it is not only global brands that are key, but also the geography of sales. Here we have excellent news. It is the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) that is currently driving the global WLAN market.
In the third quarter, the market in our region grew by as much as 12.8% year-on-year. By comparison, the Americas, traditionally the bastion of the largest investments, grew by “only” 6%, and the Chinese market even contracted (-1.3%).
What does this mean for resellers and integrators on the Vistula? Europe is in a phase of intensive infrastructure modernisation. Companies are catching up with technology and are opening up budgets for new networks more readily than their US or Asian counterparts. This is a moment worth seizing, especially by offering upgrades to the latest standards.
Wi-Fi 7: It’s no longer a novelty, it’s the standard
Where is this demand coming from if the market is slowing down a bit globally? The answer is simple: the 6 GHz band. Business customers have realised that it is no longer possible to work efficiently in the crowded ether of the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.
Adoption of the new standards is progressing rapidly. Wi-Fi 7 already accounted for 31.3% of market revenue in Q3 2025 (a jump from 21% a quarter earlier!). If we add in the Wi-Fi 6E standard (24.5% share), we find that more than half of the money spent on wireless networks goes to devices that support the 6 GHz band.
Companies have stopped treating Wi-Fi 7 as ‘tomorrow’s technology’. It has become the ‘for today’ standard. The tripling of bandwidth and new radio spectrum capabilities are arguments that convince IT departments to replace their access point fleets, even if the previous generation has not yet been fully depreciated.
What is the modern customer looking for?
Analysing market data and the opinions of IDC experts, it can be concluded that the very criteria for choosing a supplier are changing. The era of “buying boxes” (Access Points) is definitely over.
The modern organisation is not looking for connectivity alone – it is looking for an intelligent platform. Market experts point out that the key to customer portfolios today is a holistic approach. Systems that offer:
- Deep integration: WLAN must be part of a larger network stack, not a separate island.
- AI and automation: With increasing network complexity, administrators need tools that detect and fix problems themselves (AIOps).
- Built-in security: Wi-Fi becomes the first line of defence and security functions must be integrated into the access point.
Perhaps this approach is the secret of the success of companies like Ubiquiti – they offer sufficiently advanced management in a model that is easy to deploy and maintain, without the need to maintain an army of certified engineers.
