6 GHz Enabled Industrial WLAN APs to Account for Over 70% of Shipments in 2030, Accelerating Deterministic Wireless Rollouts and Empowering Mission Critical Industrial Automation

Spectrum congestion is the bane of wireless industrial networks. The limited array offered by the legacy 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrums limits the ability for industrial facilities to guarantee reliable, deterministic connectivity for mission critical applications, and consequently industrial organizations have historically held a preference for wired over wireless. Yet the introduction of the 6 GHz spectrum band is set to upend this dynamic, as the additional 1200 MHz it makes available will offer industrial manufacturers the additional spectrum capacity they so desperately crave. This, coupled with the need to support new mobile use cases, and a desire to simply and streamline network design, will stimulate a rapid expansion of WLAN within industrial networks, with global technology intelligence firm ABI Research forecasting a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.6% between 2024 and 2030 for ruggedized industrial WLAN AP shipments.

“Whilst 6 GHz will deliver a sizeable boost to industrial WLAN, regional growth will vary widely.” Says Andrew Spivey, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. “In the US, which benefits from a favorable WLAN regulatory environment, shipments of ruggedized industrial WLAN APs in 2030 are projected to be 219% of what they were in 2023. Mainland China on the other hand, where regulators prioritize 5G/6G over WLAN for Operational Technology applications, industrial WLAN growth will be anemic, with shipments rising a mere 7% over the same period”.

The 802.11n standard, typically referred to as Wi-Fi 4, was still predominant within Ruggedized Industrial WLAN APs in 2024, with 45.9% of all shipments supporting the protocol. Yet the standards landscape is evolving fast, and shipments of ruggedized industrial WLAN APs equipped with 802.11ax, more commonly known as Wi-Fi 6, are forecast to increase from 0.82 million in 2024 to 1.41 million in 2026. It is in this latter year that 802.11ax shipments will surpass those of 802.11n, making it the most shipped standard in infrastructure. 802.11ax’s rapid rise will be underpinned by the launching of a plethora of new 802.11ax ruggedized industrial WLAN APs, with product releases over the past 12 months including models from Phoenix Contact, Hirschmann, Moxa, and Westermo. 802.11ax shipments will continue to rise throughout the decade, reaching 2.32 million in 2030, representing 66.0% of all shipments in that year. One interesting peculiarity of the industrial market is that whilst 6 GHz-enabled 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6E) AP shipments began declining in the enterprise market as early as 2024, this ‘steppingstone’ standard is expected to continue receiving high levels of demand in the industrial WLAN market for many years to come. This is because although industrial environments are desperate for the additional capacity that 6 GHz can offer, they see little of value in 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7), leaving them to favor 6 GHz-enabled 802.11ax.

“The Industrial WLAN market is a world unto itself, where the certainties of enterprise networking don’t apply. Whereas in enterprise Wi-Fi 4 is a legacy technology that was long-ago phased out, in industrial it is the prevailing standard within networks. Again, in contrast to the breakneck adoption of Wi-Fi 7 seen in enterprise, the standard is not expected to see widespread adoption in industrial networks, with the market instead expected to proceed straight from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 8. These idiosyncrasies just add further to the challenges of industrial WLAN network management, and make external support and guidance all the more essential” concludes Spivey.

These findings are from ABI Research’s WLAN Industrial Networking market data report. This report is part of the company’s Wi-Fi & WLAN Technologies & Markets research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights.